The Longest Battle
by AndreaLyn
Summary: An AU based on one simple difference. What if DG hadn't let go? PART 3 ADDED. Onesided Ambrose/Cain undertones.
1. Chapter 1

There was tale of it throughout the O.Z., in the way that whispers travelled and refused to dampen; they only grew with the enthusiasm of more and more villages passing along the narrative that would soon be a fairytale, the rate it jumped around.

_Two little princesses standing in a cave. The witch, that crone, wanted the throne. But the princesses two stood strong and refused to give way._

While certain towns and settlements began to fear at the cries of a witch in the midst, most took it simply as myth and nothing more. The hazy mists of the tale were embellished as they always were and in some stories, the witch prevailed and in others, the Princesses had used their magic to obliterate even the memory of the Witch from the O.Z. There was only one account that was actually accurate and that was the story that Azkadellia had patiently told her mother as she held onto her sister's hand that dusk in Finaqua, telling her shakily about the cave and the mobats and the Witch.

The Queen, with her two beautiful daughters, did not wish to hurry to any judgment and merely spoke in quiet passing with both her Guard and Advisors to investigate a matter of defence against the darkest magic.

If it was true that there was a Witch seeking the power of the throne, the Queen imagined she would stop at nothing to achieve it.

Ambrose was the Queen's dearest friend, the smartest man in the entire O.Z., and it was he that the Queen took aside to speak with in the darkest area of the palace where only shadows could watch their conversation. "There will be difficult times ahead," the Queen confessed softly, her lavender eyes as fiery as an ocean in turmoil in a storm. "Can I trust you?"

"You can always trust me, majesty," Ambrose swore softly. He would give his life to the cause and to his Queen if that need be and with a gentle touch to his forearm, Ambrose knew that his life might be offered up sometime in the future. While towns and villages had the blissful ability of ignoring the threat that lived just outside of Finaqua, those that lived in the palace could not ignore what the princesses had seen that day, what Azkadellia had whispered to her Mother, the words the Witch had hissed.

_"I have been waiting so long."_

How long would be long enough? How long would it be, the Queen wondered, until the Witch took matters into her own hands and began to employ her own servants while trapped in her dark prison. There would need to be plans set in place in order for the Queen's reign to go on unthreatened. There were dark times ahead and none would escape without their own scars. Perhaps the only consolation was that the Queen had a realm before her willing to brave battle for their freedom and for good.

She left Ambrose in the dark halls to sit with his myriad of thoughts and to wonder just what it was he could do to help her. He paced his way down floors and maze-like corridors while thoughts plagued him and plans began to take seed.

The Queen had other plans in mind. She had her daughters to check up on and to whisper her secrets to, about the emerald and the Grey Gale and how they would always, _always_ be stronger together.

She would not find her daughters for some time, however. She saw them, a flash in the corner of her eyes as DG ran across the halls in tears and Azkadellia chased after her in a desperate effort to find her and catch up with her sister. The Queen knew better than to intrude on this quiet session between her girls and resolved to find them later and hold them tight while singing them to sleep.

"Deeg," Azkadellia pleaded softly when she discovered her sister clinging to a banister on one of the highest balconies of the palace. She approached carefully and crouched down to take hold of one hand to form a protective field around them, just in case; just in case of _anything_. Azkadellia was a careful girl, after all, not prone to the risks that her younger sister was all too happy to indulge in.

But her sister wasn't in a mind to do anything but shake like a leaf in her sister's grasp.

"Az," DG cried softly. "I can't sleep anymore. I k-keep seeing her." She clung tighter to Azkadellia's grasp and above them, the moon was high in the sky, refusing to give way to anything; a solid force while two suns hid until their time was to come. "I don't want to see her," DG protested, her voice soft and an echo of its usual determination and strength.

"You won't," Azkadellia promised. "So long as you're with me, DG, you're safe. Remember? Just keep holding on."

That night and many going forward, the princesses of the O.Z. were tucked into the same bed by their loving mother, who permitted them to sleep with their hands clasped together, as if in protection of whatever nightmares might threaten to disturb their calm. Each night, the Queen sang softly to them until they fell into a hopefully dreamless sleep.

_Two little princesses dancing in a row..._

In another dark corner of the palace lay Ambrose's laboratory for only his uses. He had long ago taught his assistants to use their own room and that this was his and his alone to invent his many delights and to improve upon the already-existing devices that the O.Z. used to work. Tonight, he sat in the corner, surrounded by his books. He was weary already and the storm had yet to even break on the horizon. The worry was slowly going to eat away at him if he didn't do something about it and he needed failsafes in place, in the event that he lost control of his research or, worse yet, his staff.

"Protocol One Point A," he began to narrate to the echoing loneliness of the chamber. The recording device could be enchanted by the Queen to only be accessible by certain parties and though Ambrose's heart sank at the thought of anyone actually ever having to access these pieces of information, he knew all too well that a person was better off safe than sorry.

The storm was coming.

They were all going to be ready.

*

Zero worked in the sort of avenue that most men stayed out of. Occasionally, he'd dip down into the Realm of the Unwanted to see if anyone wanted to hire a private guard of sorts or pay him for their dirty work. He had absolutely no problem in fulfilling things that fell into the categories of hazy grey when it came to morality. So long as the deed was being fulfilled (the reimbursement usually ending up in Zero's pocket, which was his favourite place for payment to end up), he would do it.

Lately, he'd been having some pretty vivid and dark dreams. Through them all was a silver thread to follow, jumping from one dark scene to the next.

It was a woman's voice, Zero was sure of that much. Every dream, no matter if it took place in the mountains or in the fields, it whispered to him, using his name specifically and drawing him in deeper and deeper to the settings that surrounded him. It sounded like his first wife sometimes and at others, it was just a woman whispering into his ear about money and about power and about being a steward of a new age.

"And all you have to do, my Zero, are a few small favours for me..."

When he woke up, he'd never completely remember just what it was he had been dreaming about, but that didn't seem important. Every morning, he'd _know_ that he was supposed to do something for someone, a mission of sorts. While it didn't result in immediate pay, he had the feeling deep, deep down that he would be rewarded for it one day.

That morning, Zero knew one thing and one thing only. He had to pay a visit to the Mystic Man and take him out of the picture with some vapours before he could offer too much of a warning about the impending future and the detailed histories of the O.Z.

He was off to see the Wizard.

*

"Protocol One Point M," Ambrose tiredly narrated, rubbing at his eyes as he circled his laboratory with the steady even paces that he had come to use in perfect time, never exceeding his steps. It had been nearly a solid thirty-six hours and but for the breaks he took to keep his mind sane and in perfect working order, he had done nothing but add failsafe after failsafe, plan after plan. "In the event of..."

His speech was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"I'm _busy_," he snapped towards the door. It was curt and possibly a little too impatient, but Ambrose had yet to sleep more than two hours and he didn't have time for silly little interruptions. The knocking continued, though, not even affected slightly by either Ambrose's tone or his dismissal. It kept on going and going and Ambrose sighed, drawing himself to his feet.

Neither the Queen nor Ahamo would dare to interrupt him in his lab.

Ambrose tried to ignore the increasing feeling of dread within him as he made his way to the door and took a moment to polish himself up; adjust his hair and his coat and make himself something less of a mess. He ran his hand over the curls in his hair one more time before drawing the door open to find not the Queen, the King, nor the princesses.

"Oh."

"Ambrose."

It was far worse than that. For the past four months, Ambrose had been quietly seeing one of the courtiers from the North, a blond man with a young face and a graceful step in both his walk and his dancing. Francis had been absolutely wonderful, except that he hardly understood the importance of science and wanted to see Ambrose at the most inconvenient of times. Like _now_. He knew that he shouldn't be so irritated with someone so calm and beautiful, but looking into his hazel eyes, all Ambrose felt was contempt at the man for getting in the middle of his protocols.

"Francis, I'm in the middle of very important work," Ambrose insisted. "Can this wait?"

"No. No, it can't." Francis looked cross, which served to highlight that he was only really attractive in his natural state of calmness. His face took on a pinched look with anger, one that Ambrose could hardly bear to look at. "You're always giving time to your work and never to us. We're through, Ambrose. Done."

He didn't even elect to wait for a response before he left the laboratory, gently closing the door behind him. Ambrose watched the latch lock and thought to himself about the four months he had spent with him, of kisses and dances in ballrooms, of the Queen's delight at Ambrose's happiness in the first few weeks and then her worry as the happiness gave way to a barely-visible content. Ambrose was an expert at many things and a genius in the truest sense of the word. He understood that when people lost their partner, they were supposed to be upset and were supposed to grieve.

Ambrose, however, simply went back to Protocol One Point M and thought to himself that he would have to find a new partner for the next ball.

He didn't have time for feelings. He simply didn't.

*

Zero had a list of names.

There weren't many on the list yet because the woman in his dreams had yet to specify a purpose beyond the need to take the Mystic Man out of the picture and to render him incapable of being anything more than a fancy little plaything for Central City to enjoy. His name sat on the top of the list and beneath him were three more names. The next name was that of a highly-placed security advisor that worked on the Mystic Man's detail and worked as liaison to the Royal Palace, reporting what he saw in the hearts and minds of the public. Zero had disposed of him over the cliffs of the Papay fields, watching him dangle for his life and secured by ropes. The Papay were farmers, mostly, but either they would discover the prey Zero had left for them or the long fall onto a spat of jagged rocks would kill him. Zero had forced him to field one last report with the Palace, gun to his head.

_"All is well and there is little to report from Central City. However, in the light of recent stressful incidents in my life, I will be taking an indefinite leave of absence."_

The second name after this was an alchemist who put together some of the Mystic Man's necessities in his travels. Zero would have use for someone like that and had shackled him in a prison down in the Unwanted Realm, keeping him half in the real world and half drugged on opiates to prevent coherent thought from happening. He did little more than babble on all day about chemicals and the Ozian periodic table.

The third name on the list was a highly placed member of the Tin Men with connections to just about everyone in Central City, even going so far as to knowing Zero's ex-wife. He had an insufferable manner about him of knowing more than anyone else in the O.Z. did and Zero constantly wanted to put a bullet through his heart before he'd even been commanded to do something about him.

Wyatt Cain.

Zero had a personal interest in him. He had never liked the man through their meetings before and he didn't think that he had ever felt anything towards him but the bite of contempt. Instead of dispatching someone to do the job for him, Zero had pocketed both a gun and a knife in his coat as he made a decision to call on the Cain family at their humble little house in the country. He had stood on their doorstep in his fitting black duster and had even knocked politely on the door as if this were a social call. Still smiling when the door was opened by Cain's pretty little wife, he grabbed her forcibly into his arms and backed away from the door, making sure to keep little Mrs. Adora Cain in the path of any bullet that the man might fire.

"Afternoon, Wyatt," Zero greeted. "Why don't you put down your gun and I'll see about letting your wife live," he offered coolly. Cain was nothing more than a lumbering beast to him, all force and brute when it came to the way he approached the world without any finesse whatsoever. Cain pushed them out of the house, locking the door behind him. Zero didn't care about anything but ridding himself of Cain in the creative way he had devised. He had a singular purpose and right now, he had to keep the Missus quiet and make sure that nothing strayed from the plan.

Behind him stood an Iron Suit, a clever little mobile prison that was especially good at making convicts face their crimes. Zero had procured one in the Black Market with the intention of locking up the good Wyatt Cain to keep him away from his plans and goals. If the Mystic Man didn't have a protective detail, it would be like stealing candy from a baby to get to him.

"Put her down," Cain threatened, careful and patient, his gun trained on Zero, though there was no clear angle and Zero had carefully made sure this was true. "Put her **down**," Cain roared this time and Zero couldn't help but think that he had awakened the sleeping lion and smiled to himself slowly. He had reinforcements waiting just in the woods in case Cain grew slightly...unmanageable, but Zero wanted the satisfaction of doing this himself. "Zero!"

"No, Cain," Zero said patiently. "Say please. I want to hear you say _please_."

Cain kept the gun steadily trained on Zero's head and between them, Adora begged desperately. It seemed to take its toll on Cain as the Tin Man's hand started to shake, tremble despite his youth and strength insisting otherwise. He should have been able to dispose of Zero easily, but so swayed by his emotions and by his love for his wife that he was useless. It was almost sweet. The begging never came from Cain's lips; all Zero heard was the thick, guttural begging of a useless man who knew he was losing a war as he pleaded for her life, his for hers.

Zero didn't have the heart to tell him that he planned on taking them both anyway.

Slowly, Zero slid his knife into Adora Cain's back and let her crumple to the ground while his men grabbed Cain from behind, his gun falling into the marshy grasslands while they carted him off and brought him to the Iron Suit lying in wait. Zero had to imprint the events into the TDESPHTL and he did so to Cain's screams of rage and desperate cries of Adora's name, again and again, to the point that Zero sighed.

"Get him in there faster," he ordered simply, setting up the machine and spiking it into a nearby post to get it playing in an infinite loop. It flickered as he walked through it and watched with a satisfied smile as they sealed Cain into the contraption and locked it up good and tight.

"You really are a genuine Tin Man now," Zero praised, knocking on the glass partition between Cain and the rest of the world. "C'mon, we have a meeting in Central," he muttered to his henchmen while leaving the looped scene of Adora Cain dying in his arms and sliding to the ground playing without promise of cessation; _ever_.

Three for three and all in a matter of days. _She_ would be pleased with him.

*

He had been in the suit for three days, seventy-two hours, every minute a torture of watching a TDESPHTL replay a scene over and over again that he never in his life wanted to watch. Not _ever_. Cain raged against the suit with all of his might, nearly screaming and roaring against the iron, useless to struggle. The prison wouldn't move, refused to give way. What was worse was that he didn't know what they had done to Jeb. Had they simply kept moving or had they looked inside the locked house?

Was his boy crying?

What was he supposed to do without his mother? What was Cain supposed to do without his Adora? He didn't have any of the answers and he just raged harder and harder for it. He'd yet to grow tired of screaming and shouting and though his voice was going hoarse and his throat dry, he refused to stop. His cheek was covered with three days' worth of thick stubble and he couldn't move his arms but to thrash around, so he made do with the room he had.

Three days and Cain didn't know where his son was. Three days and he had watched his wife die by Zero's hand thousands of times.

The sound of a screw slowly being removed barely occurred to Cain and when the suit was pried open with a creak, Cain staggered to his knees and barely looked up at the neighbour who had freed him, mouth parched and voice lost as he stared at the holographic display in front of him and he watched Adora fall yet again and again.

It didn't occur to Cain to be grateful that someone had come, it didn't occur to him to thank the gods that though they didn't have a neighbour for miles, someone had come to Cain for a small favour and had wound up performing an unmatchable charity. Nothing mattered at that moment but his family.

"Adora," he whispered hoarsely, reaching his palm out to her and scrambling to his feet to rush towards the sound of a screaming cry from inside the house. "Jeb!" he shouted, his neighbour – a man named Brown, Cain though, the local smith – in tow. Cain was determined to do one thing and one thing alone and that was to rip the projector from the post and throw it to the side before he nearly ripped the door off its hinges and sprinted inside to gather up Jeb in his arms and hug him tight as he could, rocking him back and forth.

"F-Fa..." Jeb whimpered softly, unable to get out a full word. Cain closed his eyes tightly as he rocked him back and forth, back and forth, letting the rhythm soothe the building rage in his blood.

He looked up at Brown, his icy blue eyes frozen over as every last emotion fell by the wayside. "I need to borrow your truck," Cain said flatly. "I'm going to Central." Whether he even got permission or not didn't matter to Cain, who was on a mission. "It'll be okay, son," Cain whispered, brushing back the boy's fair hair. "It'll be all right."

*

In order to properly distribute his encrypted files, Ambrose had to make a trip to Central City to visit dear old friends that he could trust with not only his life, but the lives of the Royal Family and every last soul in the O.Z. One of the accounts was to be placed in the hands of the Mystic Man, who was a legendary figure of intelligence and 'magic'. He was well-elevated in the ranks of society and had the adequate protective detail to keep the tapes genuinely secure.

Obtaining an audience with the man, however, was proving to be more difficult than had even been rumoured. Ambrose had been outside his office for an hour, listening to the distracted curses and mutterings all too familiar to the Advisor, who had sounded much the same in the midst of an unsolvable problem. Ambrose was mildly suspicious of the location, mainly due to the fact that despite a confirmed presence of security, Ambrose hadn't seen any of the men; not the security advisor, not the alchemist, and not the Tin Man.

He had a distinctly bad feeling about this.

Eventually, he gave in to his impatience and knocked on the door again. "Mystic Man, please," Ambrose pleaded desperately. "I have to find my way back to the palace sooner rather than later."

When the door was opened, he recognized the man who stood opposed of him, but just barely.

He wished that his mind had worked a half a second faster when it came to recognizing faces; wished it worked as quickly as it did to puzzle out theorems and solve the small trifles that plagued the O.Z. The name of the man was _Zero_, but that hadn't processed quickly enough for Ambrose to escape unscathed. He should have never forgotten Zero, considering how they had met before, but Ambrose had done his best to erase that part of his past from his consciousness and here he was on the doorstep of a stranger. If he had recognized him, then maybe the fate of the future would have been different.

But it wasn't.

"We're busy," the man named Zero informed him, gripping a thick, heavy wrench in his hands. Behind him, the Mystic Man looked half out of the world, mumbling to himself and puzzling out the mass of the universe. Confusion and sharp worry flickered over Ambrose's face before the wrench was brought down atop his head.

The last thing he remembered was letting out a painful howl before the world went black.

When Ambrose was finally jostled awake, it was by the rudest of slaps from a firm hand clad in a cold wedding ring, no doubt frozen by the cool temperature of Central City at night. Ambrose thought to strike out at his attacker, but all he could muster was a painful howl as he clasped his head, squinting to figure out where he was.

"What happened?" he demanded, his vision still fuzzy. "Where am I?"

Slowly, his vision allowed itself to clear and reveal a stern-faced pale man whose features were obscured by the grey fedora he wore and the upturned collar of his coat hid the rest, including whatever intentions Ambrose might have gleaned from his face. His eyes yielded nothing but anger and pain and Ambrose found it useless to look there too long.

He accepted the offered hand and slowly searched his surroundings, stumbling in place while rubbing his head again and again and feeling something of a groove where something must have hit. "Wait, what happened?" he demanded heavily, voice fraught with panic. "Who _are_ you?" Ambrose was nearly wild with the answers left blank. The door to the Mystic Man's office was wide open and there looked to have been a scuffle within.

"I'm Cain," the man with the icy blue eyes answered tersely. "I'm looking for Zero."

"Why?"

"To kill him."

"Ah," Ambrose mumbled, feeling like his mouth was filled with cotton balls and he twisted his chin around as he put the pieces together. "Zero. _Zero_. He hit me with…with…that!" Ambrose gestured wildly to the wrench that lay abandoned on the marble floor. Ambrose still hadn't put together why it had happened, like his memory was lapsing in and out and he couldn't stop it. He'd have to make a stop to the medics later and see if there wasn't a balm to help him through the pain. Ambrose gave a frustrated grumble under his throat as he rubbed at his head then took a look at the Cain-man who was scouting the room. "It's no use," Ambrose sighed. "Even an idiot like Zero would have found a second location."

"Why would Zero want to hurt you?" Cain demanded and it was remarkable how little emotion was in his voice. Ambrose couldn't even find the barest trace, nothing past that bubbling ire and rage that seemed to pool at the surface.

"I'm an important man," Ambrose said lightly, which only brought forth the hammer of a gun being pulled back. "Oh, _really_, is that necessary?" he spat out.

"Father?"

As soon as the gun had been drawn from a holster, the safety was clicked on and the gun was shoved back into its hiding place as Cain swivelled on his feet to wrap his arms around the interrupting voice. Ambrose couldn't do much else but stand there in shock, still as a statue as he saw the first genuine emotion cross this Cain's figure and it was so overwhelmingly, achingly filled with love and despair that Ambrose might have cried if he weren't still so confused about what was happening.

"Jeb, what are you doing?"

"Mister Brown left an' I don't like the truck," the boy whispered, dark blond strands of hair falling in his eyes as he peered over Cain's shoulder and fixated his gaze on Ambrose. "Who's he?"

"Just a friend of Father's," Cain promised with a light bounce as he kept Jeb in his arms and turned to look at Ambrose and even though there was no gun being pointed his way, the glare from Cain's eyes could have been composed solely of daggers and the child (who couldn't be more than three) in his arms did little to stop that. Ambrose swallowed uncomfortably, searching for a way to escape without having to harm Cain or put his boy through a sight like that.

"Come with me," Ambrose said impulsively. "I work at the Palace and it's secure. We can talk there. You can bring your Jeb."

Though an argument seemed eminent on the tip of Cain's tongue, Ambrose knew he had to move fast to convince him to come.

"You'll have an audience with the Queen if you so wish it," Ambrose informed him curtly. "Now. Are you coming or not?"

Little Jeb's fingers slowly entwined in his father's hat and it was hard, then, not to look at the gun-wielding man as anything but a loving and doting father. It took this lull in the tense moments between the two of them for the man's name to truly hit home.

"Cain," Ambrose exhaled, staring at him with wonder.

"What?"

"You're the Tin Man on the Mystic Man's detail."

"_Was_.

It was the last thing spoken between them before Ambrose took them back to his car and drove them back to the palace in silence and under the cover of absolute darkness, aided by clouds being out and shadowing the O.Z. from the light of the moons. When they passed through the gates and approached the Queen's domain, Cain set a sleeping Jeb in the back before leaning in to ask what Ambrose had been waiting for.

"Who are you?"

"Ambrose," he answered, full of pride and puffed up like a peacock. "I'm Advisor to the Queen."

"Good for you."

That took all the puff out of Ambrose's chest quickly and he deflated, focusing instead of driving into the hidden scaffoldings where he could unload the guests and bring them to accommodations for the evening before he found out just what Cain wanted with Zero.

*

Ambrose had left Jeb and the man who called himself Cain inside his own private quarters while he sought out medical attention with one of the medics the Queen kept on constant detail in the event that one of her daughters came down with something worse than a mild little cough. His head still smarted something fierce and he wanted to be in full control of his faculties when he eventually sat down with Cain and discussed what Zero had done.

"I think I was hit with a wrench," Ambrose mumbled, his words sticking together lazily as they stumbled out of his mouth. "Bastard of a man…_Zero_…"

The medic was making his rounds and lifting bits of Ambrose's curled hair to inspect the bump, making Ambrose wince and hiss when every poke and prod to the area. Curiously enough, this seemed to go on for some time and the Medic's cool fingers against Ambrose's scalp made him recoil uncomfortably.

"What's he done?" Ambrose pleaded tiredly. "I still have a meeting to take, just give me something for the throbbing."

"Ambrose," the Medic remarked, somewhat sharply. "This isn't just a simple headache."

Ambrose froze slightly from his fidgeting, hand about to twitch with his collar and his hair. "What do you mean?" When he got in a mood, the crisp and icy temperature in his voice could rival that deadness in the ice of Cain's eyes. Ambrose could be warm and friendly, he could be studious and careful, and he could be cold and vengeful.

The Medic made his way around to face Ambrose, still parting his hair to poke at the injured area, causing Ambrose to give a sharp yelp and scowl of pain.

"If you do that again, I will have you relegated to treating the warts in the kitchen staff," Ambrose threatened, far from being idle either.

"The blow to your head may cause memory issues down the line," the Medic said, his voice strained. "Issues recalling simple facts or you might simply black out for a moment and come to, in a mental sense. Your brain capacity will continue to function, but you may have moments of fluctuation, at least, until this sorts itself out. We would have to meet again after to evaluate."

"My brain is intact, though," Ambrose very carefully asked.

"You're fully able to continue on as the Queen's Advisor. You may just have 'episodes'." The Medic _finally_ took his fingers off Ambrose's head and the Advisor pried himself away gratefully, not wanting to be poked at like an animal in a zoo. "I would inform the Queen of this recent development. I'm sure she would be lenient on an old friend."

"I can handle myself," Ambrose promised, panic welling in his throat as he rose to his feet and spun to his left, then to his right, not so much disoriented as he was in the middle of an attack of panic, desperation clawing at him at losing any of his capabilities because of one vile little henchman.

His walk back to his quarters was punctuated with many a curse at Zero and the heavy clomp of his boots as he wound his way back to the room.

He drew both doors open with his arms, storming into the room and _demanding_ an audience with his presence, expecting Cain to look up immediately and, at the very least, to demur in his stance, to let him ask the questions. No such thing happened, though, because Ambrose found Cain tending to Jeb in bed, brushing a broad hand over the boy's sandy hair over and over again, Cain's other hand resting above Jeb's heart so simply.

Ambrose found himself feeling guilty and swallowed thickly as he closed the doors behind him, taking a moment to compose himself and pray that no 'episodes' assault him just yet.

He found his way to the edge of the bed and let his hand hover above Cain's shoulder, not quite touching, but close enough to be felt. "Is he asleep?" Ambrose whispered carefully.

"Out like a light twenty minutes back," Cain agreed, rising to his feet and turning on Ambrose, using his larger physical presence to intimidate and back Ambrose up enough steps so that they wouldn't wake Jeb up with their talks. "I want Zero dead," Cain announced under his breath lowly. "He killed my wife. He's done something to the other members of the Mystic Man's protective detail and the Man himself has gone _missing_."

"He gave me a brain injury," Ambrose inserted his own complaint. "I'd like to find him as much as you do, but maybe death is too quick to jump to."

"He…" Cain began to rage, as if wanting to continue on his litany of accusations.

"There are questions to ask," Ambrose interrupted patiently. "Like _why_." He couldn't seem to pull his gaze away from Cain's – what was his first name? He recalled the reports, he had to know it, what _was_ it? – and they stood there for a long moment, locked in the angry look. "What was her name?" Ambrose finally asked gently.

"Adora Cain," he answered, voice brimming with pain. "Zero is going to pay for that with his life, if I have anything to do with it. He took her life and he offered his up in the exchange, even if he doesn't know that yet."

Behind them, Jeb Cain slept the sleep of the young and the innocent as plans began to turn from the wisp of an idea into a firm, solid existence. "I'll come with you," Ambrose insisted, the panic now caught in his throat and turning to stupid bravery. "I can travel under a falsified name with the Queen's documentation and we can find Zero and just exactly what's afoot."

"Jeb…"

"He can stay here with the Queen. She has two daughters who would delight in a playmate," Ambrose noted as he glanced over his shoulder. He always had been a proponent of having DG and Azkadellia making friends outside of the palace, but their parents had always been so hesitant to let them out from under their wing. He would appoint a proper guardian who could send letters if need be.

"Nothing personal," Cain said lowly, "but I just met you, brainiac. And you expect me to entrust my only son in your care?"

"In the _Queen's_ care," Ambrose corrected. "If you want to meet her, I can arrange an audience tomorrow."

"Fine," Cain agreed, but to what, Ambrose didn't know just yet. The Tin Man brushed past Ambrose on his way back to the bed, where he took Jeb's hand within his own and glanced up at Ambrose past the rim of his hat. "Set up a meeting. Then I'll see about you tagging along."

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

The Queen sat high upon her throne the next morning, a fur coat around her shoulders. Neither her husband nor her daughters were anywhere in the vicinity, but Cain didn't exactly care so much about that. He'd brought Jeb with him, keeping his boy in his arms while he walked with confidence and no fear before the Queen, giving her a bow of his head while he took off his hat.

He might have had no fear, but that didn't mean he was without respect. Adora, she…well, she would have had his head if he hadn't shown the Queen of the O.Z. the respect she deserved. Even the thought of Adora sent Cain into a moment of cold, brutal shock where he lost the ability to speak and he was immediately glad that Ambrose had tagged along to make proper introductions.

"My Queen, this is Wyatt Cain, one of the city's Tin Men," Ambrose murmured with great deference. "He was a member of the Mystic Man's protection detail and he wishes to leave his son in your custody while I escort him on a task."

"A task?" The Queen's voice was as clear as a bell and Cain found himself bouncing Jeb slightly to wake him up. It wasn't often that you got to be in the presence of the Queen and he wanted his son to remember this day.

"We need to find the Mystic Man and we both have a shared goal in finding a man named Zero," Ambrose said darkly.

The Queen seemed to take her time to mull Ambrose's words for some time, her beautiful lavender eyes falling on Cain in the meanwhile. Jeb had taken to sucking his thumb as he stared at the Queen and Cain did his best to pry the finger from his son's mouth, aiming for at least an inch of dignity while in the throne room. Eventually, her gaze drew itself to Jeb and a smile slowly dawned on her face, as if the suns peering out from the horizon.

"And who is this dear boy?" she invited.

Cain set him down on the ground and watched Jeb make his way slowly to the Queen as she beckoned him. He couldn't do anything but wander back to stand side-by-side with Ambrose and just hope that something _good_ happened.

He really never expected what he saw.

In a matter of seconds, the Queen swooped Jeb up into her arms and began to whisper to him, rocking him back and forth and making small, magical lights with her fingers, delighting Jeb as she smoothed his hair back and asked him simple questions about his name and what had happened and when Jeb began to have problems relating what happened to Adora, the Queen soothed him and kept him in a gentle swaying motion.

"We'll take good care of young Jeb, Mr. Cain," the Queen promised. "My daughters will take the most responsible of care in regards to him. I will task Azkadellia with it specifically." She smiled softly at Jeb and then took a long look at Cain, which made him falter and for the strangest of reasons, he felt almost like he was about to fall to his knees in front of her.

"I will send you with my protection and my seal," she said, very seriously. "And we will care for your son as long as you wish it."

"If you don't mind me asking, Ma'am," Cain offered, clearing his throat and never knowing when to just let it be. "Why?"

"Because Ambrose asked it of me and I could never deny my dearest friend," the Queen insisted simply. Cain glanced to his side to catch the sheepish smile falling off Ambrose's face, who immediately stared at the floor when he realized that Cain was staring at him. Cain didn't take his eyes off of Ambrose, though he was pretty sure that the Queen was the more interesting of the two in the room. He'd just yet to figure out the Advisor's angle and he really didn't like being full in the dark about these kinds of things.

Why hunt Zero for something like a knock on the head?

Cain wasn't sure of all the answers yet, but he planned on finding out.

"We've got ourselves a deal, then," he informed Ambrose, sticking a hand out to shake. "First we find the Mystic Man, then we get Zero."

"Agreed."

*

In the morning, Ambrose was awakened by a heavy pack falling on his stomach.

He gave a cry of surprise, slowly sitting up and staring at his surroundings, panicking when he genuinely didn't know where he was or who was in the room with him and was this his bed? Who was _he_ again? "Rise and shine, beautiful," a sarcastic voice alerted him and Ambrose tried to fix his bedridden hair as he slid a pair of reading glasses on and looked at the Tin Man, already equipped and ready to go.

At least he'd remembered him.

"What time is it?" Ambrose protested tiredly.

"Six in the morn, by the position of the suns. We're wasting daylight, let's go," Cain ordered briskly. Ambrose groaned and wanted to turn over in his warm covers and forget that he had ever agreed to go with this madman on his quest. "Your men gave us a lead on the Mystic Man's whereabouts and we're going there first. Wherever the Mystic Man is, Zero will be close."

Ambrose rubbed at his eyes and peered up at Cain, who had yet to show any emotion in the light of morning. Without his hat on, Ambrose noticed the way the light caught his pale hair and wished that he were more awake to deal with the rush of physical attraction that coiled in his stomach and pushed through his body, alerting other parts of him that it was, indeed, time to get up.

"Can I at least have some privacy to get dressed?" he snapped, hoping that it sounded officious enough to get Cain out of his eyesight until he could get himself into a presentable condition.

"Fair enough," Cain conceded and left the room before Ambrose's physical state could give him away. The warmth in his lower stomach turned hotter and hotter still as he took hold of himself and brought himself off in the early light of morning to the memory of large hands, cold eyes, and a strong jaw.

It didn't mean anything besides the fact that Ambrose had a keen eye for pretty things.

By the time Ambrose was ready to go, he had only wasted thirty minutes of daylight and had managed to groom himself, clean himself up, and feed himself in the space of a very short span of time. He smoothed a hand over his long, tattered green coat and a pair of rather sullied beige trousers. When he was done, he gave a nod to Cain. "While in town, refer to me as Glitch," he informed him.

"Why?"

"Because Ambrose is the Queen's Advisor." The pseudonym had something of ironic amusement to Ambrose considering the medic's words and rather than go by something from his past (that someone might yet recognize), he was going to indulge in the sordid little joke. If he was going to have moments where his brain didn't work right, he wanted at least one laugh from it.

"Where I come from, you say who you are and you deal with the consequences," Cain said lightly, his tone clear that he disapproved of Ambrose's version of espionage.

"And where I come from, announcing who you are at the door is asking to be shot and not all of us have a death wish," Ambrose retorted in turn, rolling his eyes as he clasped a pack and clutched it to his chest. "Well, let's go, before we spend the whole day _arguing._"

*

The streets of Central City were covered in the thick fog of both the weather and the dense steam that could choke a man from one too many exhaust pipes. Cain walked through the haze like a lone figure in the night, barely breathing in and keeping his hat tipped down to avoid the citizens seeing his face. Though it hadn't been very long – a matter of _days_, even -- Zero had been able to recruit himself something of a small force to fight against those who swore to defend the Queen and her family. Behind Cain, Ambrose followed carefully, constantly watching if someone was on their tail and refusing to say a word.

Cain liked that about him. He might have been a fancy Royal type, but he acted like a soldier in the field. He'd yet to see the other man actually _fight_ yet and he spent his time slightly worried about that, mainly because Ambrose – sorry, _Glitch_, he was still getting used to the insistence of a code name -- never seemed to carry a weapon. As far as Cain was concerned, you used your own name, you carried a gun, and you walked swiftly. With Jeb in the care of the royal family, Cain could let his worry dissipate slightly, but he couldn't do much to make his grief fade.

All he could do was ignore it.

"Cain," Glitch-Ambrose hissed at him, dragging him back with one hand wrapped around his front and the other clapping over his mouth. He tugged him forcibly back into the shadows, just in time to avoid a couple of men in long coats searching the street for Tin Men to cart off for 'questioning'. Cain held utterly still, so much so that he was a statue in the shadows of the Central City alleys and he refused to move. Three days inside the tin suit had taught him how to rage against a hidden foe and had taught him how to remain perfectly patient, to refuse to move. They had to get to the Mystic Man, but they also needed to get there without being caught or else all was lost. Glitch's hand was hot over his mouth and Cain closed his eyes tightly as every muscle in his body froze in place and he stood there, no more than a figure in the alleyway. Eventually, the Longcoats moved on and Glitch relaxed with an audible sigh of relief.

Cain took that as a sign that he could move.

"Your guys said the Mystic Man was down the Old Road, just off a couple of blocks in the middle of town," Cain muttered under his breath, waiting for Ambrose to catch up and adjust his coat. "We have to get to him before he gets moved again or we're really out of luck."

"What building?" Glitch asked quietly.

"A place called the Old Performer's House," Cain said slowly, checking to the left, then to the right, gesturing forward. "C'mon," he hissed. "Cross. Now."

They made it across the street and down the way to the Old Performer's House with no trouble at all thanks to Cain's leadership and Glitch's uncanny ability to fold into the shadows and dispose of trouble before Cain even drew his gun from its holster. He'd have to ask later about where Glitch had picked up his ability to move like that. Cain knew Tin Men who had been trying for annuals to perfect subtlety and still couldn't even claim slight knowledge of the skill.

"Here," Glitch nodded to the door, hooking a hand over the belt-loop of Cain's coat and nearly _shoving_ him inside. Cain made to protest, but his swears were cut off by a single finger of Glitch's to his lips, shooting Cain a 'don't even say a word' look. "Men, outside," he hissed, pushing Cain up the stairs. "I'd recognize Zero's little pet symbol anywhere. He's gathering himself a little band of thieves." Cain knew that better than anyone, seeing as they had come to his home to forcibly lock him away in what should have been his permanent prison.

Cain wasn't about to wait. There was a time to wait and think about plans and possibilities and there was a time to take action and Cain was a professional at being decisive. He kicked down the locked door, gun lifted with the safety off and he was ready for anything they might come across.

There was just a man tidying up the shambles of a room.

"Don't fire, please!" he begged immediately, tossing the broom to the ground to hold both hands up in the air as he looked at Cain in panic. Cain could sense Glitch moving in to stand behind him, but he didn't falter. He wasn't about to trust anyone, especially not in a climate that was growing more and more paranoid by the day.

"Where's the Mystic Man?" Cain demanded.

"Gods, I don't know!" the boy – had to be a boy, no more than sixteen – protested wildly. "Zero came in and took him away, said they had a show down on the South archipelagos with a stop by lake country!"

"The caves," Glitch murmured worriedly behind him.

Not one of the three men had to say a word to know that they were all thinking about the same thing. _Two little princesses standing in a cave…_

*

"That settles it," Cain said, holstering his gun as he stepped out into the alley. Now that the sun had started to trickle into the sky, he felt safe enough to actually step forward and bathe in the warm light. If Zero wanted to take him on with the citizens watching, then Cain would happily let him try just that.

"Settles what?" Glitch-who-was-really-Ambrose muttered, sounding tired and extremely irritated. Cain barely turned, letting the morning light cast shadows on his cheeks and the hat cast a dark line that hid his eyes.

"We're going to find the Mystic Man, remember," Cain said patiently. "Either you're coming with or this is where we part."

"Due south?" Ambrose scoffed.

"You got other plans?"

"What about your son? I thought you were itching to take him away from everything of royalty?" Clearly, the early hour didn't suit Ambrose in the least, from his irritable reaction to Cain, the plan, and just about everything else they had encountered. "You know as well as I do that going into those caves without a plan is suicide and maybe you're willing, but I certainly am not!" he insisted. "Now. The Queen will help. She can use her magic to scan the caves and see just what is going on and maybe, just maybe, _Tin Man_, we'll be able to go out there with a plan."

There was a very long moment of silence between them.

Truth be told, Cain wasn't sure if he wanted to ignore the man, punch him, or just do both. He'd just had to have a good argument though, which bought him some time and left Cain sighing while nodding down the street.

"One day. If you don't have any other leads by then, we do it my way."

*

They had left the palace some fourteen hours after they had arrived with maps, currency, and hope in tow. The Queen had been able to sense the Mystic Man's presence near one of the larger lakes in a cabin and had marked it with a circle of red on the map for Cain. He has asked about Jeb, but she had almost instantly assured him with a playful smile on her face as she'd said, 'he will have all the joys in the world while his light shines elsewhere for a short time'. It'd been too wordy and flowery for Cain, but the gist was that Jeb would be safe and Cain had a goal in mind.

He hadn't expected Ambrose to tag along.

"What, and leave you to be shot?" Ambrose had said sarcastically, loading up the truck. "My work isn't so critical that I can't go with you for a couple of months to search for answers. If anything, it should help with the reports."

"You really think it's some old crone in a cavern?" Cain asked dubiously, getting the truck's old engine rumbling away while the heat of the truck brushed over them, promising a comfortable journey.

"No," Ambrose admitted, closing the door behind him and waving into the rear mirror at Azkadellia, who had come out to the front steps to see them off and blow kisses that were 'from DG and Jeb both'. "That's just not logical. It's more likely a quiet political coup tired of the monarchy."

"That happen often?" Cain asked curiously as they hit the streets.

"More than you'd think, Tin Man. We try to keep it quiet from law types like yourself."

They drove in silence for close to five hours before they spoke again and it was only because Ambrose was falling asleep and Cain, out of some misguided attempt at male bonding, reached over and prodded him awake, laughing when he got that same irritable look from him.

"You're doing this to torture me," Ambrose tiredly complained, curling back up into the door of the truck and trying to fall back into that blissful sleep that Cain refused to let him have.

It was going to be a long campaign.

*

Out of some misguided attempt at optimism and hope, Ambrose had let himself believe that they would search for the Mystic Man precisely where the Queen had told them to look, find him, get their answers, find Zero, and be done with the whole mess. That, of course, presumed that life was entirely that simple. The truth of it was that after five months of searching, they still had nothing and over half a cave-system left to inspect. Cain had lobbied to go back to the palace for the cold winter months and Ambrose had agreed, hardly the sort of man who was ready to rough it.

When the ground thawed, they were back on the road and Ambrose had grown increasingly dependent on Cain's presence in his life. It was more than the physical presence that was so nice to look at, but the quiet calm that he brought with him.

Cain used to have nightmares in the back of the truck, tossing and turning with his sheets as if an invisible intruder threatened his life. Ambrose had never slept much in his life – always awake and alert for the next idea to strike – and had spent most of his nights watching and wondering what haunted his dreams, spent the darkness watching how all the worries seemed to slide off of Cain's face when a peaceful sleep did grace its presence on the former Tin Man. Ambrose had once tried to rest his hand on Cain's arm to calm him through the night and had nearly earned a broken finger for it.

He didn't try and do that twice.

The silence was companionable, really. And it wasn't always so silent. Sometimes, all it took was the right subject and Ambrose earned himself hours of conversation while listening to stories about Central City or the Mystic Man and a warm chuckle at the recollection of a fond friend from the past. Ambrose _liked_ travelling with Wyatt Cain, far more than he had ever liked dating Francis or dancing with the Baron of the Westlands. Cain had a simple charm to him that came from not trying to be too fancy or aristocratic and a beauty that derived from not even being aware of his own handsome face.

Not that Cain knew any of this. Ambrose kept it mostly to himself for fear of losing the one thing he had come to value so much -- a _friend_. Advisors to the Queen with brains as big as his had a difficult time finding people who were willing to put up with him for a day, much less the months of time Cain had been travelling with Ambrose. He didn't dare bring any of his private thoughts up, afraid that they might drive Cain away and then he'd be right back to where he started.

"This is it?" Cain asked, as they approached a small cabin attached to a cave.

"Right latitude," Ambrose mumbled distractedly. "Right longitude. This is it."

As with all their previous searches, Cain exhibited the same impatience as always, kicking down the door to Ambrose's annoyed, 'yes, I can see, you're _manly_' mutterings behind him. Normally they found a house near a cave and it would be empty. Worse, it would have citizens in it, afraid for their life after receiving the Cain Greeting.

Today, Ambrose's optimism finally came through.

"Mystic Man," he exhaled in relief, rushing forward to untie him carefully. He was keeping an eye out for Zero, but there didn't seem to be anyone in the house but the poor older man, tied up to a rickety chair. "Cain, is Zero here?"

There was a long pause and the hammer of Cain's gun was released. "No," he said, the single word rife with more disappointment and anger than Ambrose had ever heard in his whole life. Ambrose took his eyes off the mythical figure tied up before him and took a long moment to watch Cain, worried about him and wanting to offer more solace, but not knowing what to say.

He wanted to think it was because he wasn't that eloquent in times of distress, but he was.

He was glitching again, the sore spot on his head returning to haunt him with a vengeance.

"Eyes of blue," the Mystic Man rasped, pointing at Cain.

Cain took off his hat and pressed it to his vest-clad chest in a show of deference, giving the Mystic Man an utterly confused look, one that Ambrose picked up on quickly. He had a feeling of dread in his stomach that was slowly growing and collecting all the vestiges of hope that Ambrose had set aside and the dread was destroying every ounce. Zero wasn't here and he had left them a shell of a man, from the looks of it.

"Mystic Man," Cain pleaded, falling to one knee before him. It was the _desperation_ in Cain's eyes that made Ambrose turn away in the end, feeling as if he had no right to intrude on those emotions. "Do you remember me?" Cain's words were sharp and precise, a deadly shot in verbal form.

"Eyes of ice," the Mystic Man laughed, an ugly crow of a sound. Rapidly, his attention turned to Ambrose. "Mind of two."

"He's useless," Ambrose said lightly, voice barely there and the dread had completely eaten up all his optimism now, turning it into the iciest of feelings: that _bitter_ cynicism that he always swore would never get him. "Cain…"

"Where's Zero? Is he behind this?" Cain demanded, thrashing the Mystic Man in a vice-grip as he kept repeating the questions over and over again. "Where's Zero!" he bellowed and eventually, it was too much.

"Enough!" Ambrose sharply shouted. Cain seemed shocked by the tone of voice – one that Ambrose had never taken on in his presence before – and released the Mystic Man when Ambrose glided his way into Cain's personal space, confident that he could hold his own if a fight happened to break out. "Enough," he reiterated, voice lower and a warning now. "He clearly doesn't even know who he is, let alone who's responsible. It's vapours."

"Vapours are _magic_, Ambrose," Cain replied, his tone low and dangerous. "Are you telling me this is the work of your Queen and Princesses?"

"They're your royalty too," Ambrose said, glaring right back. "And they would never do such a thing. Never. Zero must have someone else on his side and we are not going to find him here." And then, he did something he didn't think he had bravery enough to do. "Like it or not, but your life has changed. What you have left is this mission, but not that alone. I…could use your help. With the unseen threat outside the Palace's gates, I've been working on many things, but some require items far out of my reach. I don't trust others to get them and with things getting more dangerous by the day, I don't trust the O.Z. on my own. Make your choice, Cain. Either live in your shadowed past or work with me to make a better future."

Cain didn't answer him.

He took to getting the Mystic Man out of the chair and bundling him into the truck, never once looking at Ambrose. It was all too daunting, that Ambrose had finally gone and said the wrong thing and he'd lost a friend in the process; gods help him, was he about to truly lose Cain because he had to speak the truth?

It was weeks later when the palace came back into view that Cain finally gave Ambrose a response.

"I'll work with you," he said, the palace looming before them like a beacon of hope. "But I'm not letting go of my past."

*

Whenever Cain was at the palace, he always found himself seeking out the company of Ahamo rather than the Queen or her Princesses. Jeb was going on four and a half annuals now and though Cain worried about the environment he was growing up in – Cain couldn't even dare provide the riches that he was slowly becoming accustomed to – he knew that his boy was safe within the thick walls and behind a devoted guard. It didn't change the fact that he was surrounded by fancy dresses, lavish events, and more respect than Cain had ever had in his bones.

"You know, it really isn't so bad here," Ahamo had said one day while he and Cain walked down the marble halls of the main floor. Neither of them were much men of circumstance and after so long around Ambrose, who seemed to _demand_ respect and attention, it felt good to relax and just be a man of simplicity around the Queen's husband, which technically made him King, not that Ahamo ever asked anyone to call him that.

Cain hadn't actually said anything about the palace and Ahamo seemed to notice the flicker of confusion across his face, which drew a laugh out of the man. They shared many of the same values, believing family most important and were around the same age and period in their life. Their young children weren't far off and the sound of them comforted Cain.

"I used to hate this place," Ahamo confessed, scratching the hair on his face. "I thought it was cold down to its floors, that it was a place I didn't belong."

"What changed that?"

"Azkadellia." Ahamo's face lit up just by saying her name and Cain knew that expression well. It was the same one Ambrose spoke of and sketched onto paper when Cain was talking about Jeb. His thoughts flickered to Ambrose and he wondered just where he spent all his time while they restocked between their voyages. He enjoyed the man's company, but Cain had never been prone to introversion the way Ambrose seemed to embrace it. Cain was quiet, but being isolated made him feel useless. "When Azkadellia was born, I started to look at these halls with new eyes. Now, I can't see anything but home."

"Your home," Cain pointed out, unable to keep the quiet tone of bitterness from seeping into his voice. "Kings of realms can have homes like these. Ex-Tin Men have small shacks in the woods." He still didn't know how he was ever going to take Jeb back to that. Worse, he couldn't even imagine a future in which they weren't still fighting off the assails of an enemy who refused to show itself.

"Don't sell yourself short, Cain," Ahamo warned. "More people than just royal figures live in palaces. People who have earned their place among these walls."

Cain still didn't believe much of it and gave a bow of deference to Ahamo, knowing that even if he didn't bring titles on himself, he was still owed respect. With only hours left before he and Ambrose left again – this time to find a rare element of the Ozian periodic table in the ice-caves of the North – he wanted to spend that time with Jeb, reminding him that although he came and went, he was still the most important thing in Cain's life.

When he entered the room, he found Jeb and young DG crouched over a map large enough to wrap them up as if a blanket.

"And then you can be King of the Papay Fields," DG was announcing, sounding pretty important for a girl of all of six annuals. "We'll make you a crown with the leaves and everything!"

"But I want the forest by our house," Jeb had whined, bringing a nostalgic and sad smile to Cain's face at the pronouncement. He'd dropped by the house the other week to see the condition it was in. The roof was slowly caving in and the grasses were growing too high amidst the small other flaws it had. He and Ambrose had lost three days during a short side-trip – on a tip that Zero had been seen in a nearby village, which had been a bust -- when Cain had insisted on stopping to do enough repairs to keep the home in living condition.

"For later," Cain had insisted.

"Honestly, Cain, you'll have a home," Ambrose had sighed before sitting cross-legged on the bench in the back and watching Cain do his work and hadn't _once_ offered any help beyond 'measures of efficiency' to make the job go faster.

He wanted to keep his home from rotting away into nothing. It wasn't the only thing in Cain's possession that needed upkeep, but the fact was that it was the one thing that Cain could actually control. His heart was growing more distant by the day, it felt like. Adora was nothing but a memory shrouded in pain and Jeb was his bright light through it all. Sure, the company he kept was good enough to keep the painful memories at bay most times, but he always got the feeling that Ambrose was constantly a half-second away from scolding him all the time.

"Hey, kiddo," Cain broke up playtime with his voice and couldn't help the broad grin on his lips when Jeb sprinted his way and nearly tackled him to the ground with a tight hug and a giddy shriek of, 'Father!'

DG had ambled up behind him, curtsying distractedly with her dress. "Hi, Mr. Cain," she said, waving her little fingers.

Cain clasped a hand tightly on Jeb's back to keep him close in his arms. "Hey there, Princess," he greeted, ruffling Jeb's hair. "Hope my boy isn't causing too much trouble."

"Nah, he's lots of fun," DG promised, barely saying another word as she wandered back to the pile of books and maps that had been scattered out on the ground. Cain felt a flicker of sympathy for whoever was left to clean the mess, but that disappeared quickly enough, given that Cain had done the same for many an annual when Jeb had been only an infant intent on crawling through the entire house, come hell or high water.

"Father, DG lets me play with the maps," Jeb was immediately off, nattering about the last few weeks of their time. "And Azkadellia tells me stories to get me to sleep, but I miss you," he complained. "How long are you going away this time?"

"Couple months," he said apologetically, trying not to mention that it could be upwards of an annual if things went awry. They had to get all the way to the North and explore their way through gods knew how many caverns of ice before they found Ambrose's little element.

"I'll miss you," Jeb protested as a stray blond curl fell over his face. "But," he continued bravely, lifting up his chin. "I'll be good and I'll write down everything that happened."

"That's my boy," Cain said warmly, bringing Jeb closer into his arms to hug him tightly, not wanting to say goodbye just yet, not when there were hours to go.

He spent his time with Jeb in the library with his son in his lap. Jeb spent his time excitedly explaining all the figures and scribblings of a child's journal as Cain kept a wary eye on the setting of the sun, knowing that when the first moon rose in the sky, he and Ambrose would need to be on their way across the waters and to the next town and the next.

Eventually, the call came for dinner and Jeb pried himself out of Cain's lap and stood on the floor, staring all the way up at Cain. "I love you, Father," he said solemnly, with a nod. Cain could feel his iced-over heart thawing just slightly at his son's quiet innocence and he knew he would give anything to protect that, to fill any void that Adora had filled before with her kind smiles and warm cookies and brightness on cloudy days.

"Be good for the Queen, okay?" Cain said, his voice rough with emotion.

The last thing he saw before he departed the palace was Jeb's brave nod, biting his lower lip as Cain walked out with his hat sitting low on his forehead.

Ambrose was waiting for him in the distance beside a hot-air balloon, an item that had only recently been introduced to the O.Z., since the scientific advisors had finally repaired Ahamo's mode of travel.

"You're late," Ambrose noted, but it wasn't to blame him. It sounded more like a greeting because 'hello' was just too common for a man like Ambrose. For some reason, it made Cain smile inwardly. "We missed the sunset."

"Never did take the time to watch a sunset before," Cain opined, barely more than a grunt, as he stepped into the aircraft. "Don't think I'm about to start."

"Fine, then," Ambrose replied, with only the slightest roll of his eyes. It didn't take long to stoke up the fires and get the balloon rising higher into the sky. Really, it made Cain's stomach lurch. He was used to the more conventional methods of travel, whether that was car, horse, or just the simple act of walking.

None of this fancy flying around.

Ahamo's balloon was adequate travel for two over a short distance, to Ambrose's clear delight at getting to test the craft, clear enough to Cain when he started rambling away without even so much of a word to provoke it. "This is neat," he remarked, chin tilted skywards as he studied the propulsion system. Cain was staring away at him dubiously, even if it took Ambrose a while to look down and catch that glance. Before he could get defensive, Ambrose softly (and yet, still audibly) counted to three, as if preventing himself from snapping at Cain while showing him just how much of an effort he was putting into it. "We don't really have these in the O.Z., you know," he explained just _why_ it was so interesting. "Ahamo brought it from the other side in a storm and the scientists patched it up as much as they could. It runs on fuels and the elements are lighter than air, which is how we're…" He gestured with his fingers, signifying birds flying away. "You know, flying."

"You like fancy things like this," Cain observed. "Things that fly and tick the way they're not supposed to."

Even though it was just a cursory and vague assessment, he hadn't counted on Ambrose going all funny and pink the way he had. "I suppose that's one way of putting it," he said, clearing his throat as a slight stutter got into his voice. Cain attributed it to nerves, of going off to a strange land with a man who was still a stranger, despite their nearly continuous annual spent together. "Really," Ambrose spoke, his voice distant and dreamy. "I think I just like a puzzle."

It really shouldn't have been so surprising, but it was, that Cain understood then and there just why they made such good friends.

Not that he'd ever admit aloud that they had become friends after all this time.

*

"Jeb!" DG's excited voice called through the halls of the palace while the Princess of seven annuals dashed her way, shrieking with laughter. "Az! Az, help me find Jeb!" She nearly climbed into her sister's lap in the library, prying the book that Azkadellia was reading from her grip. "Please," she begged.

"I was reading, Deeg," Azkadellia protested lightly, but with a simple sigh, she was already placing DG back on the ground and taking her little sister's hand, a protective glow of white magic encircling their palms. "Where did you last see him?"

"I don't know," DG patiently replied. "We're playing and he's supposed to be hiding, but he's really good at it!" DG looked plaintively up at her older sister while swinging their hands, but immediately fell into a petulant fit when Azkadellia started laughing behind her palm. "It's not nice to laugh. Mother says it's _unladylike_."

"It's supposed to be hard, Deeg. It's a game."

Still, they didn't stop as they wandered through the halls to find the young boy of only five annuals who could be anywhere. He had a talent for hiding and every time his father stopped by to talk to him, it seemed that Cain helped to discover new little crooks and crannies. It made for an amusing day, however, while the rest of the O.Z. sat in a perilous position on the cusp of light and darkness, always about to fall prey into the hands of an evil Witch that half the people believed in and half thought to be nothing more than a story. The Queen did her best to keep her Princesses from hearing too much about the Witch, however, casting a protective spell on both them and their newfound closest friend, the Cain boy.

"Do you think Jeb will stay with us, Az?" DG asked, peering through the music conservatory and the stargazing parlour to see if there was a flash of curly blond hair to be had in any of those rooms. "He can be our little brother! Maybe Mother will let him be a _Prince_."

"But he's not," Azkadellia patiently replied. "He's Wyatt's son and when he and Ambrose are back from their journey, they're going to go home." There was something like regret in her voice as she spoke what she had been constantly told by people like Tutor. She had grown to love Jeb and wanted to protect him as much as she could. Azkadellia was that burgeoning age between childhood and becoming an adult where she could see into both worlds and not understand either as fully as she might have five annuals ago or five annuals down the line. She understood that she liked Jeb in their lives, but that he didn't belong to them and was Jeb _Cain_ at the end of the day.

Azkadellia could just barely peek into the adult's world and understand that what Ambrose and Wyatt were doing was different than it was two annuals ago when they had met for the first time. She didn't dare say that aloud, though, in case she was wrong. She didn't want to be yelled at. Azkadellia wanted to live her life without getting into trouble.

Which was unfortunate, considering that DG's goal in life was to find enough trouble to rain down on the both of them.

"But I like him," DG protested in a quiet whine. "Why can't he stay? Mother and Father like him too! They're always giving him praise and treats, like us." She twisted up her lips in thought as she wrinkled her nose. "I want him to stay."

"Me too, Deeg," Azkadellia promised softly. "But if his own Father wants him to go away, we can't stop him." She couldn't help the pang in her heart at that prospect and wished that she could use their magic to sway Mr. Cain's heart away from the idea of taking Jeb away. Ambrose and Mr. Cain's mission along the outskirts of the O.Z. was bound to take at least another half an annual and after all that time, she wasn't sure that she could part so easily with the young boy.

"Found you!" DG announced eagerly as she jumped into the laundry cupboard and dragged Jeb from under the pile of towels he had squirmed into. Azkadellia watched with barely-concealed amusement as DG's skirts got tugged at in Jeb's valiant attempt to escape.

That was put to rest by a visit by the Tickle Monster.

The sound of Jeb's shrieking laughter echoing through the palace was a welcome contrast to the much bleaker climate outside the palace walls.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Eventually, the questions came.

They were on their way South again on foot after their transportation had been stolen in the middle of the night, an event that left Cain in a sour mood for days. They had to camp out under the boughs of rocking trees and endure the winds when there were no inns to be found. Ambrose knew that the luxury of a warm bed wasn't always possible, but it didn't stop him from wishing for it.

A warm _bed_ wasn't the only thing he wished for, but he'd learned to keep quiet about that. Cain finally seemed more human and less like a haunted shell of a man who was nothing without his wife and Ambrose didn't dare go back on all their progress. If the day came when Ambrose could tell Cain about what he felt, then it would. Until then, there was proximity on colder nights and warm looks shared over warmer meals and that was enough for him.

Then, oh, _then_, the questions.

"So what is it you have against Zero?"

They didn't talk about how they had discovered the compound in the North and had it tucked under Cain's large coat carefully or how it had taken seven months to find. Of course, getting back to the palace was a whole other kettle of fish. It could take another three months on foot – what with many of the roads in terrible condition this far north -- and Ambrose wasn't looking forward to it, especially if it involved questions like these.

He'd ignored Cain for a good week, but Cain didn't take that as a sign to stop. If anything, it just made him more stubborn, which gave Ambrose keen insight into the man. _Stubborn_, he checked off in his head. At the same time as being elated at discovering more about Cain's personality, it was the sort of trait that Ambrose hated. Stubborn men, after all, make very poor significant others.

Not that Cain was Ambrose's _anything_.

Nine days later, the questions were still coming from Cain while they sat around the fire and cooked their meagre dinners. "I can't imagine a man like you would get so vengeful over something like a little smack on the head," Cain said evenly, hat tipped low over his head, even though the moons were the only light that dared shine down on them. "So why Zero?"

"Do you really need to know?" Ambrose finally snapped irritably, scoffing as he ran a hand through his hair again and again, feeling the grimy texture of each strand.

Cain's lengthy stare said that, yes, in fact, he wanted to hear every last detail until there was no breath left in Ambrose's lungs or until his voice had given out.

Stubborn, stubborn men. Ambrose was beginning to remember why he absolutely despised spending all of his time around them. Cain wasn't about to give up and Ambrose could hold out longer, but eventually, he would probably glitch and let it slip anyway and then what would be the point of fighting stubbornness with stubbornness?

So he sighed and broke a twig to toss into the fire, leaning forward into the warmth while the shadows flickered over his face, creating strange little shadows and shapes.

"Zero and I used to know each other when we were younger," Ambrose admitted heavily. "Back at the Academy, I was in the higher classes and he happened to be the boy who made my life miserable." It sounded so _petty_ to cite it aloud, but if it had simply been about a few platinums stolen or an uncomfortable prank here or there, he wouldn't have minded. It had been the constant and uncanny talent Zero had at making Ambrose _suffer_ and every time he thought he could let his guard down, there he'd been with something worse.

A girlfriend had been stolen here, a nasty rumour there, a project or four sabotaged, deliberate destruction of property, a boyfriend stolen there. Zero's focus had been admirable for their youth and no matter what Ambrose had set his eyes on, Zero had wanted to take away.

"Why?" Cain asked.

"I don't know, we were boys," Ambrose tiredly waved it away. "He was a bully and I was the target, pure and simple. If that sounds…well, infantile to you, then I'm sorry for carrying forward a grudge. No, I don't like the man." He also didn't want him _dead_, but didn't mention that to Cain. Bloodshed and justice were hardly ever the same thing and if Cain did something as vigilante-like as murder, then Ambrose would likely have to do something about it. It meant that Cain would no longer be in his life. "Zero always had a particular talent for cruelty that seemed to fester with age. Never did I think he was capable of murder, though."

"Times change," Cain said those two words forcefully and Ambrose sighed.

There were times between them that Ambrose had labelled 'Adora Moments' and this was another one of them. Cain would grow sullen and quiet at the mention of his wife. He wouldn't return a sentence of conversation and was poor company all around. In the beginning, the Adora Moments could last for days. Then, it had become hours. Lately, though, the Adora Moments never lasted beyond a five-minute span and Ambrose looked on that as significant progress towards something, though the goal was as-of-yet unnamed.

It still didn't mean that those minutes didn't feel as though eternity had stepped in to drag out simple seconds into what felt like forever.

"We'll find him," Ambrose said, fingers tapping distractedly as he watched the fire they had been building start to gain more life and flicker higher than before.

And what happened when they did?

Ambrose wasn't ready to deal in those hypotheticals yet, especially not at the rate his mind produced them for him. If ever there was a time that he wished for his mind to have an episode, now was that time.

Luckily, the stress of the recent journey obliged him with just that as he blanked out and ended up having to ask Cain who he was for the fourth time in two weeks.

* * *

Over the past three and a half annuals, there had been much afoot since Cain and Ambrose had first met each other and had begun their missions across the O.Z. in order to raise the defences of the castle (to _large_ success) and had spent most of their time out on the road. They were returning from the North to warm greetings from all and the news that though more people seemed to be defecting to Zero's malice, the defences of the palace and Central City were holding up admirably.

Cain had expected to come home and make a couple of repairs on his house before collecting Jeb in his arms to recount stories of the North to him. Then, he figured he'd listen to the list of royal adventures Jeb had experienced while Cain had been away.

To his complete surprise, he had been tackled with hugs by both the Princesses and his son as he ambled his way up the stairs to the front doors. "Mr. Cain!" DG shrieked happily, hugging tightly while Azkadellia laughed warmly and Jeb nuzzled his way in against Cain's leg, holding on tight like a fungus.

Behind him, he could hear Ambrose snickering away. He wished he could be more irritated by the whole scene, but it was actually mildly endearing.

"Princesses," Cain greeted politely. "Is there a reason for the clinging welcome?"

"Jeb's been telling us stories," a fourteen-annual-old Azkadellia said, brushing her hair from her cheek as she let go – the first to release him – and peered sheepishly up at Cain. She was growing up beautifully, her features gaining her mother's beauty and her father's strength and Cain worried for the poor boys that would fall in love with her, only to have the royal barrier of privilege keeping them away.

Cain was tempted to ask what kind of stories, but they were just kids and fun was fun. He crouched over to pick up DG in one arm, Jeb in the other and gave a heavy 'oof' that was only half-playful. The other half of him genuinely was stumbling under the heavy load.

Ambrose made his way to their side, curtsying to each of the Princesses before tweaking Jeb's nose lightly. "You know, Cain," Ambrose offered conversationally and politely, "there are _other_ ways to prove your masculinity beyond breaking down doors and slowly breaking your back."

"What's breaking your back?" Jeb asked curiously, content to settle in as Cain walked them inside, trying to ignore how DG's squirming was digging her knee into his ribs.

"It's something your Daddy is doing to himself by being an overly masculine representation of the species," Ambrose spoke helpfully, walking beside them at a slow clip. Azkadellia took the other side and Cain almost felt the strangest sense of _home_ as he entered the doors.

"Ambrose, if you don't want a show of my masculine strength applied to you _personally_, you should keep it quiet," Cain warned very patiently.

When Cain looked over to see what effect that had, all he saw was that slow and coy smirk that Ambrose sometimes got.

"Maybe some other time," Ambrose declined, prying DG out of Cain's arms – to which Cain sighed gratefully at the load released. The Advisor adjusted the Princess as he set her down on the floor. "I believe the Princesses need to take me to the Queen for a much-needed conversation." He wandered off with the girls, chatting away and looking the picture of grace in the halls.

Cain, on the other hand, was happy to take Jeb into his arms and study him carefully, giving him a onceover as Jeb preened proudly.

"I brought you something back from the North," Cain said warmly, grinning broadly. "Someone I ran into told me that it was someone's birthday in two days."

Jeb's eyes had lit up in the process, small fingers clasping desperately at Cain's shirt. He and Ambrose had actually been behind schedule in getting back, but Cain had been desperate to insist that they get back _somehow_. He wasn't going to miss Jeb's birthday, not this annual. Eventually, they'd stolen a dilapidated truck in one of the bigger villages they'd come across and had used fuel and sheer determination to get back to the palace in time.

And here they were, with days to spare.

Cain had spent every night of their ten months away carving with his razor and stray pieces of strong wood that he found in forests and on shores in their travels. With enough patience and hard work, he had managed to put together something of a set and with borrowed paints, had brought them all to life. "C'mon, on your feet," he said, setting Jeb down and getting out his bag to slide out the box containing each carefully crafted figure that made up a town of cowboys and horses and even a saloon or two in the style of the old myths.

Jeb took it carefully into his hands, sitting on his knees to run his hands over the wooden crate and stare reverently at it before staring upwards at Cain. "Father, can I open it?" he asked eagerly.

Jeb Cain was going to be seven annuals old in two days and Cain knew that he couldn't deny him a thing in the world.

"You can open it anytime you want," Cain promised, taking off his hat as he knelt to the ground to help Jeb open it up and watch the flickering expressions of joy on his face as he took out each wooden figurine and studied them with joy. There were more and more and just when a person might expect to find nothing else, a board lifted to reveal a whole second set.

Ten months had weighed long and heavy in his separation from his son and Cain had looked at the gift as a way to keep connected to him.

"Father, it's amazing!" Jeb insisted, intent on arranging them in the lobby of the palace. "DG and Az and I are gonna have so much fun with them!" He was madly dashing to push them back into the box and it wouldn't have taken a Viewer for Cain to know that Jeb was eager to show off his gift. He was running off with a peal of 'thank you, thank you, thank you!'s back in Cain's direction and the joy on Jeb's face put a smile on Cain's.

It was one of the rare smiles he got when he was genuinely happy, when his cheeks would lift and the smallest of lines appeared around his eyes.

Not that Cain knew it at the time, but someone else had seen that rare smile of his in that hallway.

With Jeb on his way to play with the Princesses – and honestly, sometimes Cain needed to sit back and just laugh at his life and how after four annuals, his son was living with royalty and was the best friend of two girls that would one day take the throne. He himself was travelling around the whole of the O.Z. with the Queen's letters and her foremost advisor.

It wasn't such a simple life for Wyatt Cain, any longer.

Now that he was back at the palace, he did what he always strived to do. It had become ritual over many a month and he wasn't about to abandon it now. He always checked in with Ahamo with a quiet nod and a check that everything was well in Central City. Cain never could give up on his past and so much of it was tied to that shining city on the hill. He heard the voices in the study and only bothered to knock once on the door before he let himself in.

"Queen," he greeted, "Ahamo," Cain nodded to them both, hat clasped in his fingers. There were stray security guards amidst the shelves, but no one acknowledged their presence. Ahamo had told him once that while he thought them unnecessary, he wasn't about to take any risks when it came to his family. Cain understood that to the core. "We just got in."

"Cain," Ahamo greeted warmly, clapping him on the back. "The Queen and I were hoping we could run something by you."

"It is Jeb's birthday in two days, is it not?" the Queen asked pleasantly, excitement sparkling in her eyes. "I have been planning a fête for him with my Azkadellia's help. She has been such a dove for me and for Jeb. While DG sleeps, she takes him on walks around the gardens and explains each flower," she relayed to Cain warmly.

Cain managed a barely-there smile though he swore he was damn near glowing inside to hear that even though the circumstances that led Jeb to the palace had been tragic at best, he was finally getting himself a happy life.

"I'm sure he'll appreciate the party," Cain said politely. "He's never had a very big one in his life, past what Adora and I could give him."

"The palace parties really are something else," a fourth voice interrupted their conversation. "My Queen," Ambrose spoke reverently as he entered, bowing his head. "Ahamo." He turned to Cain and shared a secretive smile with him before offering a polite, "Cain," to him as well. "Animals and flowers and on occasion, the Queen's magic lights up the sky at night with the most brilliant of light shows that not even my fireworks could mimic."

"You sound like you miss it," Cain observed evenly. While he wanted Jeb to be happy, that same fear was lurking within him, that constant worry that Jeb was going to grow too accustomed to the fine life and then Cain was going to be the bad guy who took him away from it all. In the end, his desire to see his son happy won out, but just barely.

"Palace life is easy to miss," Ambrose admitted, but he didn't sound very torn up about it. "But then, sometimes, people find there's a whole other life waiting in the wild for them."

"Now you sound like you're turning adventurer," Ahamo noted with a wry grin. The Queen laughed and clasped Ahamo's hand in her own while they shared their happy times and their smiles.

"Maybe," Ambrose admitted. "Well, Cain? Are you going to let your son have a party?"

"Why not?" he sighed. "I have the feeling that he'll get one, no matter what I say."

* * *

The party was, to Ambrose's smug delight, everything he had promised it would be and more. Cain had never seen so much of a crowd in all his life and he wasn't even certain how many people in attendance knew Jeb. For all he knew, his boy had met the lot of them in his time at the palace and Cain would be none the wiser. More than that, the crowd filled him with a general sense of unease and eventually, he informed Azkadellia that he was going to go inside and to keep an eye out on Jeb for him.

She had dutifully agreed and had shown him her gift for Jeb before Cain had a chance to escape. She had made him a small windmill for his town, powered by her magic so that it would always move, even when there was no wind to be had.

Cain had to admit that Azkadellia and DG were both good girls and it was likely that they were good for Jeb, who needed a feminine presence in his life. Still, they were a different class than Jeb Cain (or his father) could ever hope to be.

He'd absconded to the quiet and darkened halls of the palace to pace up and down, enjoying the silence. He'd gotten used to it being good and quiet, except for one exception…

"Cain?"

Ah, there it was. His exception. Cain smiled wryly and turned to find Ambrose leaning out of one of the rooms, the light spilling out onto the floor.

"What are you doing out here? I swear, you're like a bull with your pacing," he muttered.

"Shouldn't you be at that party of yours?" In fact, if he thought about it, he hadn't seen Ambrose at the party since Jeb had dove face-first into the large cake, much to Cain and the Queen's mutual chagrin. "In fact, why aren't you out there? The Queen and the Princesses are about to dazzle the sky, or so I hear."

"I put together the plans for the design," Ambrose waved it off with a distracted mumble, retreating into the room and arousing enough curiosity in Cain to follow him. He'd left the door open, after all, and that was just a subtle signal to Cain that Ambrose wanted him to ask questions. Cain turned the corner to find himself face-first with a seemingly endless room filled with bubbling creations, lights, and things that made strange noises.

This looked to be Ambrose's mad laboratory.

It took Cain more than a minute to pass the shock that came with seeing a room like that for the first time and by the time he'd found a question, Ambrose was already off with a pair of goggles on his face, tinkering with something that was foaming over with thick fog. "The Queen say where she needs us to be next?"

"I'm sure she'll mention it," Ambrose said, sounding worlds away. "At breakfast or at lunch or…huh, you think there could be a meal between the two?"

"People call it brunch, Ambrose," Cain said patiently. After more than three annuals, he could see an episode (or a glitch, whatever they were calling it) coming a mile off. There was a whole body change to Ambrose, a loosening of the synapses or whatever you wanted to call it. They never lasted very long and it was actually almost endearing when Ambrose had the moments.

If anyone ever tortured him, he'd never admit he thought they were 'endearing'. That was between his brain and his still-cold heart.

"Huh. Well, I bet it's a great meal," he mumbled, picking up a pair of tongs and extracting something from the container. "This is liquid nitrogen," he said, whispering, as if the presence of the container deserved awe. Ambrose was wearing a thick pair of gloves as he took a crystalline form out of the vat. "When combined with some of the Ozian elements, it creates an unbreakable crystal with the density of diamonds, but the beauty of eternal ice."

He twirled the large chunk for Cain to see before setting it down. "The Queen built aspects of the Northern Palace out of this combination of chemicals. It's why it stands up against so many intruders."

"So what's that one for?"

"You."

Cain gave Ambrose a wary look, not accustomed to accepting gifts. "Me."

"Well, not yet. Obviously it's not done," Ambrose said, overly critical of his own work as always. If Cain had learned anything about the man, it was that he was never content with something until he had gone over it again and again, perfecting every last little detail. "I'd like to have it finished before we leave. I know your birthday is coming up. Two weeks after Jeb's, right?" Ambrose verified, though Cain couldn't even manage an answer.

He'd _never told him that_.

"Anyway, it should be done before we leave," Ambrose was repeating himself, waving Cain off distractedly. "Go, spend time with Jeb. And bring him this." He offered a large box out to Cain, who took it and offered it a suspicious look. "It's not explosive, Cain," Ambrose sighed. "It's a sort of projector. With the magic of the Princesses, they and Jeb can create their own little adventures and watch them play out on that. It's got Moratanium lined into it to let magic flow through it with ease."

Cain was still hesitant to go, but when Ambrose started forcibly shooing him out the door with a hand pushed to his back, then his behind, and then his arm while Cain laughed in protest. "Okay! I'm going," he assured, lingering in the door to look over Ambrose and give the gift a considerate look. "Thanks, Ambrose. For everything."

"I just hope Jeb likes it."

Cain knew that he would and that meant almost everything to him.

With a deep breath and renewed spirits, Cain took the gift and made his way into the fray of Jeb's party once more. This time, the sound of loud music and playful conversation around him actually made him feel welcome rather than a stranger.

* * *

During breakfast, there were remarkably fewer faces than usual, which Cain attributed to the eager imbibing of spiked punch the night before, after all the children had been put to bed and the party continued on in the garden until the early hours of the morn when the moons were in the sky. Though the city was still at unrest and there were whispers of a growing army in the distance, the citizens had been thirsty for a night without worry. Now, the morning after showed that their carefree joys were not without consequence.

DG was half-atop the table to grasp for the warm biscuits and she plucked one while still standing on the thick oak, babbling away to Ahamo about all the creatures they had seen and how she hadn't been afraid of a single one of them.

"DG, my angel, please," the Queen pleaded simply and with no more words, DG made her way down. Cain had been sitting at the end of the table with a weather-eye on the door for Ambrose's entrance, but he never did join them.

Azkadellia and Jeb kept him company while he watched the door, recounting the list of gifts that Jeb had received the night before.

"You're going to thank everyone for them, right?" Cain said, making sure to instill lessons of manners while he was still around, lest Adora's ghost slap him around for being a neglectful father.

"I'll write proper letters, even if it'll make my hands hurt," he agreed. "Tutor's been teaching me how to write."

There was another pang at Cain's heart, this time at the thought of other people teaching his son how to live. He kept it inside with a grit of his teeth and refused to say anything aloud. So he returned his gaze to the door and continued to wait for Ambrose until he felt a hand tugging at the sleeve of his pale-blue button down.

"Mr. Cain?" Azkadellia said politely. "Sometimes, Ambrose skips meals because he loses track of time in his laboratory while working on his inventions," she said helpfully. "I used to bring him food and he would teach me things about the elements and the history of the O.Z."

Cain gave Azkadellia a curious look tempered with gratitude as he started to bundle up a couple of fruits on a plate with some meat, grasping cutlery in his hand and pressing something of a fatherly kiss atop her hair. "Thanks, kid," he said, ruffling Jeb's hair (seeing as he was so preoccupied with playing with the wooden horse to even look up at the conversation) and making his way down the now-familiar halls to the room he had only discovered the night before.

He got lost twice on his way down, having to ask various guards along the way where he was going exactly. He probably looked like an idiot, wandering his way uselessly down the halls with a plate of fruit and meat in front of him.

Eventually, it was Ambrose's loud cursing that led him to the laboratory.

Cain smiled to himself as he wandered into the lab and set the plate down without any fanfare, jabbing at it with his thumb and making sure Ambrose didn't just ignore his entrance. "Sit," Cain ordered. "Eat."

"Yes, sir," Ambrose mumbled, sliding off a pair of spectacles as he studied the plate and began to slowly pick off pieces of tropical fruit from the Papay Fields. Cain arched a curious eyebrow and didn't bother to ask if his charity wasn't enough. "I'm allergic," he explained with a weary smile. "It's why I prefer apples."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Eventually, the plate was deigned adequate to eat and Ambrose finally abandoned his work to sit with his fork and knife and eat in that Royal Manner that everyone around the place seemed to have. Cain wouldn't say it aloud, but he'd been damned glad that Jeb still ate like simple folk at breakfast, without that much daintiness in his hands. Cain watched Ambrose without flinching, bearing the brunt of a long gaze under the rim of his hat.

This was what he liked about Ambrose; he never faltered under a stare like that and occasionally got it in him to look back. There were depths to him that served them well on the road and were even better sitting in quiet rooms without needing to converse.

"The Queen wants to meet with us," Ambrose finally spoke, when he had demolished nearly half the food on his plate. "But she says she doesn't want to see either of us for a week or else we're in great big trouble. Something like that. Apparently, you're supposed to be playing with your son and I'm supposed to tinker around with my toys in here." Ambrose didn't sound very put out by that and truth told, Cain was glad for the reprieve. As much as he still wanted to hunt Zero down and make him pay for what he did, he missed spending quiet moments with Jeb and just being a father.

"A whole week, huh?" Cain said with a broad grin.

"And I doubt she'll send us off immediately, given that I've informed her of the nature of the date thirteen days from now," Ambrose noted, turning back to his machines, as if sensing that Cain was about to rain down an irritated glare on him. "Don't be so put out, Cain," Ambrose protested lightly. "Not everyone gets an event put together for them by the _Queen_ of the O.Z."

"Not that I don't appreciate her undying kindness," Cain replied evenly, forcing himself to slow down and not say something he'd regret, "but I don't need a Royal Party."

"Good. Because you're not getting one," Ambrose said, sounding annoyed himself. "Geez, Cain, have a little faith, why don't you?" came the glitchy response that Cain barely saw coming. "I think it's a dinner. Or is it coffee? Maybe it's a dance. I don't even know anymore."

Cain forced himself to take a deep breath and appreciate the fact that someone around there at least cared enough to do something.

"Really, Cain," Ambrose sounded more himself as he looked at the Tin Man over the frothing mist of the liquid nitrogen. In fact, he sounded almost soft, like there was something more to all this. "It's not my fault, not the Queen's, and no one's fault but yours."

"And how do you figure that?"

"You raised your son to be a good boy, a caring child, a loving progeny," Ambrose said simply, turning his back to Cain to return to his work. "He told the Queen and myself that your birthday was coming up. He didn't want you to do what you _always_ do, in which you ignore the date and pretend as if no one in the realm gives a damn about you."

Cain was struck speechless by the turn of events and was left thinking that maybe he should shut up a lot sooner in conversations.

"Jeb," Cain echoed.

"Yes, your boy," Ambrose concurred. "You should go spend time with him. Queen's orders, after all."

On the surface, it didn't sound like much. To Cain's practiced ear though, he could hear the subtle message within those words: _I'd like to work on something now, so would you please go before you distract me for the rest of the day with inane chatter?_

Cain didn't need to be prodded twice and he tipped his hat to Ambrose on his way out, mumbling a polite 'see you around, sunshine' to him as he went, smiling to himself.

* * *

Even though Ambrose didn't seem entirely sure on what the Queen had up her sleeve, Jeb had been bursting at the seams while he and Cain traversed the palace grounds in a 'hunt' for small field mice. "We're having a big dinner! And the Queen wanted to add dancing," Jeb added with a scowl. "She said I'd dance with DG and Az, but I don't like dancing."

He and his son were aligned in that.

Cain had used to love dancing. He had danced with Adora on their wedding night and hadn't seemed to stop, even dancing to the sound of simple music from the radio while she was pregnant with Jeb. He equated dancing to peace, joy, and Adora Cain. Now, with her gone, he wasn't sure what to think of it besides the fact that he'd probably be happy to go his whole life without hearing music ever again. Maybe that was too rash, but he was still a widower and some things took longer to heal than others.

He hoped that whole bit about dancing was just exaggeration. The part about the dinner was good though; Cain had long ago learned to appreciate a good, heavy warm meal in his stomach. When he and Ambrose were on the road, they'd never known when the next safe shelter was going to come along and it meant having to ration and be constantly grateful for whatever fell their way.

He'd put Jeb's words out of mind until the date of his birth came up hard and fast and Cain couldn't ignore it anymore, especially when Azkadellia was sent as an emissary to knock on his door. "Mr. Cain?" It was later than most dinners and he'd experienced a flicker of disappointment as he considered the possibility of there not being any dinner at all and it just being the imagination of Jeb and Ambrose's undying optimism.

He'd made a concerted effort to not look like a mess, which translated to taking his hat and his vest off and tucking his shirt into a pair of fairly new black pants. It wasn't much, but it took away from the image of him as a ruffian with no respect for a Queen who had done so much for him.

Azkadellia was, for lack of any other words, glowing. She was wearing an emerald green dress and her hair was pinned up, falling down over her sleek neck in curls. Now that she was fifteen, she should have been going through the awkward annuals of being a young woman, but there wasn't an inch of it to her. Cain liked to think that the prettiest part about her was that she honestly didn't know how beautiful she was becoming. It was a little thing, but it made the world to Cain. The Queen and Ahamo might have come to love Jeb like a child, but Cain was hard-pressed not to do the same with the Princesses.

"Everyone's waiting for you," Azkadellia spoke, not even bothering to hide her broad grin. "Ambrose said I should kick you if you need to move faster."

"He would," Cain said wryly.

Cain didn't need any kicking that evening because he was more than happy to follow Azkadellia's lead down the marble halls, the sound of soft music playing in the distance growing louder and louder with every step. Cain set his jaw, hearing the click of it as they walked and he came to the conclusion that there was going to be dancing. He'd do what he always did. He would stand there and make sure not to glower too heavily and drag Ambrose aside to keep his mind off of other matters, like always.

Azkadellia pushed open the heavy doors to reveal a small assembled crowd. DG and Jeb sat at a high table, flanked by the Queen and Ahamo and several of the Tin Men that Cain had worked with in his time.

While the Mystic Man was back in the palace, they hadn't been able to get him off the vapours, not _permanently_. Every time they seemed to be close to an answer, something would happen overnight and he would be worse than ever. The Queen had quietly murmured that he was being poisoned with dark dreams and darker magic, but Cain wasn't sure he was buying that.

"Happy birthday," Ambrose offered, standing in front of the assembled group. The music was coming from a small radio in the corner of the room and no one looked to be dancing, to Cain's relief. Azkadellia slipped away to rejoin Jeb and her sister while Cain turned his attention from the lavish meal on everyone's plates to what was in Ambrose's hands.

"What's this?"

"Which of us has the memory issue?" Ambrose remarked with heavy sarcasm in his voice. "Two weeks ago, I told you I was making something for you." But the thing Cain was more fixated on was the fact that it was being presented to him in a long jewellery box, the kind that husbands bought their wives in Central City to stop them from being angry about something or other. "Go on, it won't _bite_."

Cain reached out and took the box into his own hands, lifting the lid and staring at the contents for a long time.

It was long enough that the other guests started to make comments, started to wonder why Cain was hesitating so much. It was long enough that when Cain looked up at Ambrose, he caught a look of deep trepidation, as if the gift was poorly received.

"Well?"

It was a heart. It was a small heart that looked like crystal, but was no doubt made of Ambrose's chemical compounds that he'd been rambling about. It glistened in the chandelier-provided light of the room and felt cool under Cain's thumb.

Ambrose took a step closer to seal their words between the two of them. "It was something that you were always saying on the road that gave me the idea," he said, words hushed.

Cain looked up in the narrow space between them, catching sight of the way Ambrose's eyes seemed to glisten just like the crystal did, sparkling in the light. When they were in a perilous spot and Cain had to draw his gun, he'd always said the same six words to Ambrose before going forward.

_Have courage. Have confidence. Have conviction._

"Have heart, Cain," Ambrose offered quietly, retreating to the table and the waiting guests while Cain studied the small trinket.

It took him a good five minutes to be ready to join the din and when he did, the gift was tucked safely in his breast pocket in its new home.

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

"What do you know of Viewers, Cain?" the Queen asked, two days after Cain's birthday. Things had gone back to normal with alarming speed. Reports trickled in about murders in towns, cities, and villages, voyagers sent missives back to the palace to describe the state of decay that fell on farms and forests both and the general air of paranoia had settled into the O.Z. with a firm attitude that it wasn't going anywhere at all.

Cain had opted to avoid breakfast for a walk with the Queen around the gardens, having to slow his pace every once in a while, so he didn't get ahead of her. The Queen liked to walk slowly and he got the feeling that it was because it gave an air of calm, made people think twice about what they did and said.

"Nothing that myths haven't taught me," Cain admitted. "I've met one or two in my time, but they were either prisoners or witnesses."

"They have an uncanny ability that may help us to discover exactly the locations in the realm this darkness is being brought from," the Queen murmured, clasping her hands before her as she sashayed along with slow grace. "Perhaps even to know what will solve this battle best."

It didn't take a genius of Ambrose's proportions to get just what the Queen was asking of them.

"You want us to find a Viewer," Cain interpreted, thumbs hooked into the loops of his pants as he ambled along, always forcing himself to have to slow down so he didn't outpace the Queen by two steps for her every one. "Any idea where they live?"

"West of the Papay Fields, I have heard."

Which wasn't exactly an address, but it also wasn't a 'somewhere in the O.Z.' It was like an answer between a glimmer of hope and a complete lack of it. A needle in a _small_ haystack, but it was still a haystack.

"We'll leave soon as possible," Cain said.

"Not yet."

Normally, the Queen was relaxed and quiet, a picture of grace. Now, with two simple words, Cain understood just how much power was running beneath the surface. He looked at her, trying to will himself not to flinch in the face of her icy-stare.

"I have one more idea," she spoke, her tone soft again as though she had never spoken up with such power, with a voice that could bring on a storm. "One additional thought in order to flush out the perpetrator of such cruel acts against our realm, though it is not a happy idea in the least."

"I can deal with unhappy ideas."

"I am going to exile you and Ambrose for a period of three annuals, long enough for anyone to believe that this is not merely a frivolous act of strategy," the Queen said (though it was nothing _but_ a plot), standing as still as a statue before her gardenias and her roses. Cain stared her down, wondering if she were joking or not. The longest Cain had been away from his boy had still been only a period of months and Cain wasn't sure he wanted to test how long he could be away from him. The only small relief was knowing he wouldn't be out there alone, but Ambrose's company only went so far.

Clearly, his displeasure with the whole idea was evident on his face.

"I am sorry," the Queen offered gently. "The Advisors recommended it and I agree and Ambrose does as well that it is the best chance to bring Zero into the open and to bring an end to such senseless destruction of our land and to stop the harm to my people. It is our best chance to end this," she pleaded. "If Zero believes you to be exiled and without any avenue of safe haven, he may seek you out. Both of you. I cannot profess to understand him, but exile drives you to the places where Zero dwells, leaves you with nothing in the eyes of thieves. It is a _chance_."

"Ambrose agreed to this," Cain said, voice thick with irritation and the whole of him swamped with the desire to shoot _something_.

"Yes."

Cain took a deep breath and rubbed at his eyes. It was a chance to find Zero. That was all he had to keep reminding himself. "On one condition. I spend the next week explaining to Jeb why I won't be seeing him until his tenth birthday," he said, the words angry, but in agreement to the Queen's plan.

"He will be well-cared for."

Yeah, but not by Cain. And that was the part he still couldn't get over.

There were a dozen places to look for a Viewer when it came to 'west of the Papay fields' and Cain didn't have the first guess as to where they'd find one. The truth was that he was hoping they'd find Zero in this little fake-exile and Cain could finally do something about all the hatred and the resentment that had been building in him for so long. They'd only been out of the palace for two months and already, Cain missed Jeb. His boy had understood why Cain and Ambrose had to leave, but that didn't mean that either of the Cains had to like it one bit.

Jeb had promised to remember him and always honour Cain. Cain had promised to keep Jeb close to his heart, placed right beside the physical representation that Ambrose had concocted for him; though, the crystal was a lot more romantic than the real thing, cut in the shape of hearts in fairy tales and myths, where no one died and everyone got a happy ending.

"Well, what do you think?" Ambrose asked tiredly as they came to a stop to set up camp for the night. They had been through four towns already and while some of them had been helpful in narrowing down the span of their search, no one had given them a definitive answer about a Viewer.

That needle was still lost in that damn haystack.

"Due West, probably," Cain remarked, staring out to the horizon. He was glancing at a scribble of a map he had been eking out on their trip. "We've hit just about every town there is to the North and the South's just Lake-folk," Cain spoke, folding up his little representation and eyeing the small fire that Ambrose had managed to get together. He had to give a quiet sound of approval when he saw the fire built up a lot better than it had been some time ago. Ambrose was a fast learner – thanks to that big brain of his – and Cain was starting to wonder just how long it'd be before Ambrose was better than everything Cain could do, too. He wasn't looking forward to that day so much.

"We could split up?" Ambrose suggested.

Even if it would get things done faster, Cain didn't like the sound of that one bit. "No," he decided firmly. "We stick together. Who knows what we'll come across and there's strength in numbers." He gave a nod. "We stick together."

"That will take longer," Ambrose countered, prying at a loose thread on his coat.

"That's just too bad."

They spent the next several days in quiet search of a Viewer, Cain's displeasure with the whole trek still evident enough to prevent anything like civil conversation and Ambrose never once complained about it, not like he would have annuals ago. Cain liked to think it was because they had finally begun to adjust to one another's tendencies, like a well-timed dance around a main objective, like an effective battalion's strike. Eventually, Cain let some of his foul mood slip away by asking curiously and in few words about Viewers.

Ambrose's lengthy and passionate explanation of their abilities and habits was well worth the asking.

The days drew on a lot faster than Cain had thought they would and with a mission to pursue, he could almost feel time slipping away. He had everything figured out in his head. They'd find this Viewer and see what was really behind all this – whether it really was a witch like the girls kept insisting – or whether it was something more rooted in human evil. They'd get the parts to Ambrose's little pet-project, this 'machine' that would apparently protect the palace and maybe Central City if he could figure it out (Cain didn't doubt that he could figure out any problem, given some of the equations he'd watched Ambrose go through over the annuals they'd known each other). Then they'd go home after rooting out Zero and giving him exactly what he'd earned.

Cain liked having a plan. It meant that the chances of something unexpected happening were severely reduced, if only on the basis that there was a way to deal with every possible chance of something going awry.

Eventually, they accidentally met a Viewer.

Ambrose had been going through the woods to search for something to conduct fire better than the damp sticks and logs they had been throwing on the fire and a dry patch of woods had caught his eye. In the process of bending over to bundle some up in his arms, he realized that he was being watched. He righted himself, clothes shifting in the sudden movement, and then Ambrose watched right back.

He was currently in the middle of a staring contest with a very surprised-looking Viewer.

"Oh, hello," Ambrose said, his mind choosing the worst possible time to glitch out and go fuzzy. Why was he in the forest again? And why were the sticks poking his arms? "You're a Viewer, aren't you? We've been looking for you."

It was, Ambrose reasoned later, simple chance that he hadn't run off at Ambrose's greeting.

In all his annuals, Ambrose had never personally had a conversation with a Viewer. He had been audience to many who chose to take tea with the Queen, but he had always been called away before he could ask all the questions that brewed in his brain about just _how_ their gift worked and whether their abilities of healing were universal or simply a learned technique.

Now in the decaying orchards and fields of the West, Ambrose had finally met a Viewer for himself.

"Raw," he said his name was with a lilting and haunted tone. Cain was doing his best to ignore both Ambrose and Raw as he set up the perimeter and though usually Ambrose's gaze was drawn to his travelling companion, he was too fascinated by meeting Raw to allow himself to be so easily distracted by Cain. Ambrose asked why he was so upset, why he could be so sad. They had met him after Raw had been on the run from terrible creatures in the sky that Ambrose thought only existed in myth - _mobats_. "O.Z. hurts," Raw explained slowly. "Raw feel its pain."

Cain started to pay attention at that, taking long strides towards them.

"You can feel the O.Z.?"

"People suffer," Raw confirmed, glancing up at Cain and slowly reaching a hand out to rest on Cain's arm. Though the Tin Man flinched, he held bravely where he stood, and Ambrose was deathly curious as to just what Raw was seeing. In fact, his curiosity seemed to eat at him, desperate and loud and ever-present in Ambrose's mind.

And it wasn't just curiosity.

He felt the hot flash of something like envy that Raw could close his eyes and see inside Cain when Ambrose had spent annuals travelling with him and barely knew more than the man's name, his son's habits, and his previous job. The searing jealousy cut through Ambrose and nearly made him sick to the stomach, but he was calm and patient and he could quell the feelings. Eventually, Raw let go of Cain and Ambrose forced himself to plaster an amiable smile on his face.

"Good man," Raw opined softly. "Brave man."

"How can you feel if the entire O.Z. is hurting?" Cain demanded, never willing to do anything but make headway in their seemingly hopeless journey forward. Ambrose rubbed at his eyes and tried to align some sort of comforting word to place into this conversation, to act like the good cop when Cain was so _bitterly_ determined to do them ill by being so aggressive. "What else can you feel? Who's behind all this? Is it Zero?"

"Plans are darker, deeper, worse than Zero," Raw said gravely, gaze flickering between Cain – who was bearing in ever closer – and Ambrose, who had yet to take his gaze off of Cain, caught between what he wanted to do and what he knew he ought to do. He knew he ought to settle Raw down, but he wanted to take Cain aside and tell him to _calm down_, already.

In the end, Ambrose always did what he had to.

"Raw, why don't we get some air, I'm still curious about your people," Ambrose offered.

"Yes," Raw concurred and after a sharp look of warning was shot in Cain's direction, Ambrose began to wander amongst the half-rotting trees in the orchard, stepping on pieces of once-fresh fruits every now and again. "Ambrose is good man too."

He paused in his step to give Raw a wary look, laughing nervously as his mind blanked out and he found himself in one of his episodes. "I didn't tell you my name," he blurted. "It's _Glitch_."

"Not to Cain."

_Cain_, Ambrose cursed under his breath as his mind slowly came back to him. Raw had reached into Cain's mind and had pulled out all manner of ideas and notions and in the process, he had managed to discover Ambrose's name as well. Ambrose knew that protesting at this point in time would make him look like a _fool_ and he muttered a quick word to himself to bring this up with Cain later. Even if they were taunting Zero out from under his grimy rock, they couldn't go around letting every Viewer, Wizard, or Peasant know that the Queen's Advisor was stumbling around, fake exile or not.

"Not Cain's fault," Raw spoke deeply.

Ambrose scoffed, aiming to retort something sarcastic in the vein that it was indeed _very_ much his fault, but before he could do that he noticed that Raw had lightly clasped Ambrose's forearm with his hand. There were only two things he could possibly do; twitch and pull away desperately or give in and let Raw see _everything_.

Out of some morbid desire to know, Ambrose didn't move an inch.

Raw seemed to be overwhelmed by everything he was seeing and he closed his eyes simply to process it. At first, Ambrose had been proud of himself for having the capacity to have so many thoughts, so many ideas, that he could garner such a reaction. Soon, though, he began to be wary and worried, concerned that it was too many _feelings_ that were pushing Raw over the edge to this reaction.

Eventually, Raw pulled away.

"Well?" Ambrose asked, sounding breathless, as if he had just been chased through the whole of the O.Z. Though there was no cause for it, no rhyme, no reason, it was all he could do not to shake Raw and demand to know what it was he saw, demand to know why he wasn't telling him _immediately_. Every second that went by only served to make Ambrose more and more nervous. "What did you see? Feel? What…?"

Raw opened his eyes and looked at Ambrose with something like pity in his eyes.

"You care for Cain," Raw assessed, too many emotions flickering over Raw's face for Ambrose to be truly comfortable. He had seen something deep down in Ambrose's psyche and though he wasn't sure just what it was yet, he also had the feeling that he didn't want it on show for the world. "Love."

Ambrose twitched, one shaky hand fixing stray tendrils of unruly hair as the other hand smoothed over his coat in a fluid motion. "Pardon?"

"Love," Raw echoed his previous assessment. "Ambrose has love for Cain."

While it wasn't the strangest diagnosis in the world, it certainly hadn't been the one that Ambrose had been expecting, not in a thousand annuals. Of course he noticed Cain's physical assets; he had noticed those within the first few hours of meeting the man. Ambrose had a keen eye for beautiful things, after all, proved by his trailing list of former liaisons within his bedroom walls. But _love_? Ambrose curled up around that searing feel of hot jealousy against his stomach, wondering if that could possibly be indicative of anything.

When he thought about it though, it was too easy to pin down. Raw had said it himself.

_Brave man. Good man._

"Yes," Ambrose finally confirmed shakily, clearing his throat and willing his voice to do anything but sound so out of sorts. "Yes, I do. He doesn't know." He met Raw's gaze, leaning in to keep the quiet words between them. "I'd prefer to keep it that way."

"Cain yearns for love too," Raw's words caught Ambrose slightly off-guard because of their absolute vagueness. Ambrose wasn't a complete idiot when it came to love. He wasn't an idiot at all, but for the occasions when his brain would falter and give out on him. He knew that only four and a half annuals had passed since Wyatt Cain had lost his wife and the man was so wholly devoted that Ambrose fathomed it could be thirteen annuals more before Cain even looked at the world with the eyes of a man ready to move on. Raw's words gave Ambrose that blissful, yet stupid emotion of hope and he wondered if they weren't carefully crafted that way to keep Ambrose's optimism up in such a dark time.

He was probably thinking too much again.

"Thank you, Raw," Ambrose finally offered, with genuine gratitude brimming in his voice. "Will you stay with us and help us make our way to find the pieces of the machine we need?"

It seemed to be the right thing to say in return because that was the first time since he had met the Viewer that Ambrose saw genuine delight flicker across his face. Everyone wanted to be needed, Ambrose supposed, just in a variety of different ways.

"You really think that Zero's going to buy this exile crap?" Cain asked, crouched over on one knee and trying to light a fire using only twigs. Ambrose was completely distracted, seeing as he had set himself up several feet behind the blond and was watching his behind through the very tight pants he always wore.

It only vaguely occurred to him that Cain was asking a question.

"There's no harm done either way," Ambrose supposed aloud, wandering to Cain's side to pluck one of the twigs from him. "Honestly, let me hold this," he muttered. "At the worst, we come back with all the parts needed to create the shield, the Queen exerts her royal forgiveness and we're allowed back into civilization."

This close to Cain and especially in the cold and damp weather, Ambrose could feel the warmth coming from his body. It was intoxicating at the same time as it drove him mad, wanting to do more than just stand there.

"How about the part where I haven't seen my son in over an annual?" Cain's response made Ambrose wince and freeze up. It wasn't that Ambrose had _forgotten_ about that part, it was just that he had taken to avoiding bringing it up, like the topic of Adora.

Soon enough, they were able to get a small fire kindled between their combined efforts. In the woods behind them, Raw had gone off to find something to eat for the night, promising that his skills would find them something fresh and lean.

"Isn't finding Zero worth it?" Ambrose questioned. "And what about finding the pieces for the machine?"

The machine had been Ambrose's reason for agreeing to this 'exile'. While in Milltown, he had spoken to Father Vue regarding a defense system for the palace that combined the Queen's magic, basic mechanics, and the various angles and architecture of the palace to create a type of shield that could be temporarily brought up to defend against invaders, whether tangible or not. They had roughly a fourth of all the parts that they would need, which lay in various villages and in the homes of specialists all around the O.Z.

Cain's glare was answer enough to Ambrose's question and he sighed and took several steps back to sit across from Cain and try and pretend that the hate in his glare wasn't actually directed at Ambrose.

Eventually, Cain's annoyed glance relented and he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Headache?" Ambrose asked quietly.

"Yeah."

It was on the tip of his tongue to offer help, to lay hands on him and take all the troubles and pains away. It was a selfish thought, a need to indulge himself, but Ambrose was growing tired of nothing. They sat in silence, the fire crackling between them with deep intensity and eventually, Ambrose gave in after watching Cain rub his temples again and again, staring right into the fire like the _stubborn_ idiot he was.

"Take your hat off," Ambrose said with a slight sigh as he rose to his feet and pried it off before Cain could say a word. "And lie down in my lap." He had arranged himself on one of the logs, giving Cain more than enough room to do so.

Of course, that was if the hateful glare would go away again.

"Nothing personal, but the last person I did that with was my wife and…"

Ambrose had seconds before it became an Adora Moment and he decided that there was nothing to lose. If he made a mess of things, Cain was still bound to his side until they found all the parts for the machine. "Lie down and stop complaining," he interrupted. "Cain, honestly, I'm trying to _help_ you."

It didn't occur to him until much later that help was not something that Cain had much experience with accepting in his life.

Eventually, though, he relented. It gave Ambrose a glimmer of hope that maybe the stubbornness in Cain wasn't so deeply engrained that logic and reason couldn't get it out of him with time. Ambrose was more than willing to devote as much time as necessary to Cain, especially now that Raw had shown him just how deeply his feelings went. Slowly, Cain relinquished control and let Ambrose tug him into his lap, cool fingertips resting against the flash of intense heat that radiated from Cain's body.

Ambrose was going to drive himself mad at this rate.

He knew the way of the mind, the many corridors and connections that controlled the body. Carefully, he tried to let his fingers settle on Cain's temples, memorizing the texture of his skin as he slowly pinpointed the places that might cause pain and could bring a man to his knees. Slowly, very slowly, Ambrose massaged and moved his fingers with great care. It seemed to work, seeing as Cain visibly relaxed and sank into Ambrose's lap, easing into his fingers. With Cain there, Ambrose could study his face in the flickering firelight and watch as he relaxed, as worries seemed to melt from that stoic expression he carried around like a suit of armour.

It was a position that hadn't come easily, but now that they were in it, Ambrose found it to be oddly comfortable.

"Better?" Ambrose whispered teasingly.

"Shut it, brainiac," was Cain's retort, but there was a shadow of a smile around his lips. Ambrose ducked his head down, stray and unruly strands of hair falling into his eyes as he focused on calming Cain down and bringing him away from unpleasant thoughts of being so far from his son for nearly two annuals more. Soothing Cain like this allowed Ambrose to take his mind off of what would happen when they finally ran into Zero.

It was a bubble of a moment that preserved them from reality, if only for a short period of time.

Ambrose wanted it to drag on for eternity.

The second best option was what _did_ happen. When Raw came back with a skinned rabbit, he found Cain asleep in Ambrose's lap with the Advisor's hand resting lightly on Cain's cheek.

Though the Viewer saw everything he needed in order to understand the situation, nothing needed to be said and so he kept quiet as he set to preparing food for whenever the two men roused.

There was less than one annual left in their 'exile' and they only had one part left to find to complete Ambrose's drawings for the machine. Cain had grown somewhat more irritable as the days passed and Zero was still nowhere to be found. Ambrose put up with the fits and Raw seemed to feed off of Cain's distaste and had grown slightly touchy in recent weeks, which made Ambrose mutter a curse under his breath about Cain ruining their days for all of them.

They had stopped in a small village with only one inn to catch up on rest and meals while they asked around regarding the last cog of a machine they had been seeking to finish for all too long.

"We only have one room," the woman at the inn's desk said when she saw Cain and Ambrose. Raw had left them to speak to his people, telling them nothing more than 'rumours of darkness' before he went off. Cain had been too exhausted to do anything but agree to send him off and hope that he'd actually come back. If not, at least they had Raw's opinion on the subject.

It had taken a great deal of time, but eventually, Raw had been able to push through the pain and the haze and pick out exactly what it seemed to be. 'Dark magic,' was all he said.

Cain was too tired to argue with the woman at the desk and snatched up the key before trudging up the stairs, his mud-coated boots hitting the rise of each step and leaving a trail behind him. He could hear Ambrose conversing with the woman at the desk; maybe it was about a meal or something like getting them a second room, but all Cain could think about was sleeping for a day, or maybe a week. Hell, a month of sleep wouldn't hurt any.

The room was sparse and populated by a single bed, a dresser, and a table by a boarded-up window. To Cain, it looked like a sliver of paradise. They'd been living off the land for so long that he'd almost forgotten what a mattress felt like and he nearly made an embarrassing dash to the bed, as much as his long strides could be considered a dash.

His bag hit the ground with a heavy _'thump'_ as he collapsed on the mattress.

This was blissful.

He pried off his dirty boots – not that his socks and the ends of his pants weren't just as messy – and shifted to lie on his back, resting his arms behind his head. He couldn't even help the groan of pleasure that ghosted past his lips as he closed his eyes and did his best to slip off into sleep.

"You look like a baby in his crib," a soft voice interrupted his desperate dash for rest.

Cain barely opened one eye to look over at the doorway, seeing a fuzzy version of Ambrose standing there in his ragged coat and equally-messy pants (Ambrose's were in worse shape than Cain's, the knees having given out completely).

"I gave the woman my name. I told her I was Glitch. I told her you were my protection," he kept talking, locking up the door and fiddling around with the drawer. Cain knew that Ambrose had a habit of talking and talking and as good as the talk had been on the road, it was annoying as a bear's roar right then when Cain just wanted to sleep. "…and that bed is for _both_ of us, so _shove over_, Tin Man," came the bitter tone, louder than the rest of his words, as if he knew Cain had stopped listening.

Cain sighed and tugged his hat down over his face to keep the light from the window from filtering into his vision while he grumbled and shoved over on the bed to make room for Ambrose.

For a while, nothing happened. He could hear the sounds of Ambrose shuffling around the room and clothes shifting and items being set out, but the bed didn't dip with the additional weight for a good twenty minutes and Cain was perilously close to that half-sleep where the world felt thick and hazy all around him.

It was a good feeling to have.

Cain set his thoughts to good things, to Jeb at the palace, who would be just over nine annuals and three months now. He wondered about his education and how good Tutor was at teaching about the history of the O.Z. and the Tin Men's contribution to the efforts. He wondered if Jeb would learn about the battles that Cain had fought in when he was still new to the force, when there had been small wars to be waged. He wondered if he was growing up with Adora's features or if his boy was going to have his father's face as he grew older.

He thought of DG and Azkadellia and how they were growing up, smiling sleepily at the fondness he'd developed for the young princesses and he couldn't even remember the time in his life when he had been so against the idea of the Royalty on the whole.

At a soft snuffle beside him, Cain's thoughts turned to Ambrose.

Sleep came on pleasantly as Cain drifted off to the thoughts of what the Advisor had become to him - his best friend, his own advisor in difficult times. Dreams slowly began to filter into Cain's consciousness while one last thought played around in his mind, a thought that would get lost between waking and dreams:

_He makes you feel like Adora used to._

Cain woke first in the morning to discover that Ambrose hadn't shifted at all in the course of the night. Though the morning light was spilling into the room, Ambrose lay stick-straight on his stomach, arms clasping the pillow for his head. He hadn't even stolen Cain's blanket in the middle of the night. It was almost _considerate_. They were wasting daylight, though, and considering the good night of sleep, Cain almost felt like a new man.

Funny how many wonders a good bed could do for you.

When he was fully dressed again and tugging on his holster, he leaned over to shake Ambrose's shoulder. "Hey there, sunshine, time to get a move on," Cain spoke lowly, still shaking the shoulder again and again. After nearly seven annuals, he was good at waking Ambrose from even the deepest sleep. It was almost playful by this time, that Cain would keep Ambrose awake for company during the early hours of the morning, even if he paid for it in spades the next day when he caught attitude from Ambrose the whole of the time.

Ambrose groaned, giving Cain a sleep-addled, bleary look. "It's early," he protested.

"You can tell me all about it while we walk. On your feet," he ordered to the sounds of Ambrose's continuous complaints. Cain couldn't help but smile though them all, the familiarity soothing to him.

It didn't take much more than a half hour to get back on the streets. Thanks to the innkeeper, they even had warm food in their stomachs and several provisions for the road. She couldn't offer them a place to wash their clothes, but she did direct them to a local chemist who had been treating most of the villagers from this town and one over, for 'poisonous dreams'.

It was the first lead in a very long time.

Cain adjusted his hat as they made their way onto the dusty street and the occasional passer-by would look at them, as if recognizing them from somewhere, but would always continue on, without fail. If Cain were easily given to paranoia, he might think that something was afoot, but the more logical explanation was just that people were used to strangers wandering about their towns.

"I could get used to sleeping in bed with you," Ambrose remarked distractedly, rambling on as his fingers pulled at a string on his jacket. Cain followed behind him carefully, noting that he was glitching out from the way he was pulling apart the jacket and the way he didn't seem fully aware of what he was saying. "I mean, there's something remarkable to the notion of a person to share your bed with. I think there's something engrained in us as people to feel protected and warmer. There's also the benefit of body heat, of course…"

And on it went, all about how Cain was a good bedwarmer. Cain almost took it as a compliment if he didn't know with certainty that Ambrose wasn't meaning to say any of this.

Eventually, Ambrose stopped fidgeting with the string and plucked it right out, giving Cain a signal that he had come back to his senses.

"You done?" Cain checked verbally, just to give Ambrose a sign that he _had_ been out of it.

"I think so, yes. She said Marietta worked out of number sixty-seven," Ambrose murmured, checking the slip of paper that the innkeeper had given them in the way of directions. The town was as small as they came with small homes made of sturdy wood and Cain kept one hand on his gun in case they ran into trouble.

Eventually, the numbers started to creep towards the one they wanted.

"Sixty-seven," Cain said, gesturing to the door. "You want to announce our presence or should I do it?"

"No more knocked-down doors, Cain, please," Ambrose pleaded, almost jumping to take the lead and knock at the door politely.

They stood there waiting for longer than Cain liked and he took three strides towards the door to do it _his_ way when the thick door was pulled open by a tired-looking woman who appeared to be somewhere between thirty-five and fifty, though Cain couldn't narrow it down past that and had the feeling Marietta would mind somewhat if he asked. She had trinkets woven into her light and long brown hair and stood lower than either Cain or Ambrose did, but she made up for it with _presence_, something Cain's mother had possessed in spades. Her clothes went on for endless layers and her home smelled…it smelled of spices and sweetness and reminded Cain of pies being baked in warm ovens.

"Who're you?" she demanded immediately, her tone curt and her accent rough around the edges.

Cain might not have been the most effortless man when it came to charming women, but he knew how to offer respect. "We're travellers, Ma'am, in search of advice and help," he explained slowly and carefully, making sure to move his hands away from his gun to avoid any sudden movements and mistakes being made. "My name is Wyatt Cain and this is my friend, Glitch," he explained effortlessly. "We heard tale that villagers were coming to you for help about dreams." He took a moment to let the information sink in before he pressed forward. "We'd like to talk to you about that."

"Might as well come in, boys," Marietta accepted, opening the door to them. "Don't think I should refuse an armed man," she noted, nodding to Cain's gun.

They made their way inside to settle within the warmth of the small home. Cain could make out markings on the wall, protection figures in the language of the Ancients, by what he could tell. Ambrose probably already had it translated and memorized for later. There were herbs and bones cast around and a brewing pot between them.

"What is it, exactly, that people have been seeing?" Cain asked, getting right to the point.

"Cain!" Ambrose hissed.

Cain didn't even look anywhere but directly at Marietta, who glared right back at him. "That information's between me and mine clients," she pointed out archly. "Y'think you can just wander in here freely and use that pretty face o' yours to ask for anything you'd like?" Cain was still trying to determine how serious she was with the act and was beginning to think that he actually had a shot of getting information.

"For the good of the O.Z.?" Cain asked patiently. "Yes, Ma'am, I do think you'll tell us. And if you don't feel obliged to tell us now, we have a Viewer who could tell us what we need to know, but I'd like to think we're more civilized than that."

There was a tense moment in the home and Cain just settled his coat back over his chair, settling in for a long stay, if need be.

"You aren't even thinking 'bout leaving t'il I tell you?" Marietta guessed.

"He's an incredibly stubborn man," Ambrose pitched in helpfully, having been standing behind Cain, one hand twitchily resting on his shoulder as if in support. "I'm sure he could do this for days and days."

Marietta and Cain entered into a long staring contest and though Cain heard Ambrose's sigh of impatience behind him, he didn't break away once.

"It's for the O.Z.," Cain patiently spoke, digging out the papers he'd rarely had to use and set them out on the table: these were the papers initialled by the Queen, Ahamo, and the current head of the Tin Men. "Please," he finally added to his pleas.

"Took you long enough to add that bit," Marietta noted with wry amusement. "Sit," she directed the word at Ambrose. "I'll make a cup of tea for the both of you. Y'look like you could use simple comforts."

It didn't take very long for Ambrose to sit down beside Cain and the tea seemed to come as quickly as Marietta's words did as she began to talk easily and quietly about the nightmares that plagued the villagers. She'd prescribed sleeping aids as much as she could, but the same face haunted the villagers night by night without respite.

"What is it they're seeing?" Cain asked, expecting to hear the name 'Zero' mentioned or maybe something about whoever was really behind this; maybe someone with magic to equal that of the Queen.

"A _wicked_ witch."

"Witches don't exist," Ambrose had been complaining for days on end, ever since they had been to the small town that spoke of actually _seeing_ the witch in their dreams and in their water supply. With Zero's allegiance to an unseen 'Sorceress' implied by every last account and the dark magic that they seemed to be encountering in chilly waves, it had grown more and more impossible for Ambrose to do anything but accept it as truth.

The paranoia of the O.Z. and the climate of hurt and slowly-encroaching darkness were at the hands of an unseen dark witch, hiding in some cave. Raw had confirmed what Marietta had told them when he rejoined the group after speaking with members of his own tribe.

"Did you not believe the Princesses that day?" Cain asked patiently as they picked their way through the woods with Raw carrying up the rear behind them. All three of them had begun to look much worse for the wear in the middle of their 'exile'. Ambrose's coat had begun to wear down and fray and Cain's clothes had taken on a grey tarnish that couldn't be washed out with soap. "They don't strike me as the lying type."

"Lying, no, but little girls exaggerate," Ambrose protested huffily. He could even _see_ Cain and Raw exchanging an annoyed look and it did nothing to help his mood at all. "Witches," he muttered, letting Cain take the lead while he happily complained away. "The next thing you know, you'll be telling me that unicorns will carry us off to a land of gold and faeries."

"You gonna complain the whole trip, sweetheart, or am I going to get something resembling peace and quiet?" Cain asked over his shoulder. Even if his tone was clipped, it included the use of a new nickname that Cain had added to his lexicon only recently and it made Ambrose smile to himself every time he used it.

"We'll see."

"Great. Just what I need."

In the midst of all of Ambrose's complaining, he hadn't heard the piercing cry from above as it plummeted towards the earth like a meteorite bent on crashing into the ground. To his credit, neither Cain nor Raw heard it either, which was good for the sake of Ambrose's pride, but had been very, very bad in general.

It was a mobat and it was set on interrupting their trip back to the palace.

"Dangerous!" Raw cried out as he cowered and tried to hide himself from the teeth and the claws of the treacherous animal, rumoured to be in the Witch's employ; no, not in her employ, it was far more sinister than that. They were in her _control_. Cain had his gun drawn in two seconds flat, cocking the hammer back and aiming it skywards, pumping out two bullets, but the damned mobat dodged them both and fixated on Cain as its target, as if the gunpowder had drawn him closer.

Before Ambrose could shout or stop it, it was digging its claws and teeth into Cain's neck, spattering blood on nearby trees, the forest floor and Ambrose himself as he darted forward to do whatever he could, anything to stop the mobat.

_Anything_ had wound up being a fierce, desperate punch before he'd pried Cain's gun from his hands and shot a bullet straight through the recovering mobat's chest, right through where its heart should be, if it even had one.

It seemed to quiver and seize up, not moving a single inch and certainly not breathing.

Ambrose exhaled, feeling like he could breathe for the first time since that war cry from the sky. In that tiny window of relief, he almost forgot why he had become so desperate to rid them of the mobat and why he was holding the gun in his hand. "Raw?" Ambrose shouted, knowing they needed the healing powers of a Viewer and soon.

Raw was staring at them both with trepidation.

Ambrose cursed to himself as he wrapped his lithe arms around Cain, but even with all the strength he had in him, he couldn't keep the other man vertical and he buckled to his knees, gently lying Cain out on the path with Ambrose's arm still wrapped around Cain's back. There was so little space between them, but all Ambrose could see was the blood seeping from the wound, the _large_ wound.

"Raw!" Ambrose snapped again.

"Raw not able to heal on own," he said slowly. "Raw needs herbs to help bite." Of course, of course, Ambrose knew it from his lessons, that mobats contained a venom in their teeth and a Viewer couldn't simply heal them, not without aid of certain herbs commonly found in forests in the O.Z. Calculating the rate of blood loss compared to how long it would take Raw, Ambrose knew that they would have time. They had to have time.

"Go," Ambrose instructed lowly.

"All this panicking," Cain muttered, his eyes drifting to the bite as his hat toppled off his head. "It's just a scratch, Glitch."

"Ambrose," he corrected lightly.

"Must be having one of your episodes," Cain laughed weakly. "Can't remember up from down and left from right." Ambrose closed his eyes tightly to ignore the way his heart was aching and how it hurt to look at Cain beneath him, so pale. There was a sheen of sweat coating his face and the blood was slowly covering Ambrose's hands, as he refused to let go of Cain and brought him closer, nearly dragging him into his lap as they sat in the middle of the path to wait for Raw to return. To take his mind off of the panic, Ambrose had taken to cleaning up the wound and it had done him well. The wound was much smaller than he had originally thought and with Raw's inevitable return with the various herbs, Cain would be just fine.

That still meant that Ambrose had experienced a good minute's worth of blind panic in which he had imagined an existence without Cain in his life. It didn't matter _how_ he was in his life anymore, just that he was there and the thought of losing him to a witch's servant made his stomach churn and his heart turn to ice.

"Don't you go passing out on me," Ambrose warned.

"Getting even with me after all this time?" Cain laughed, more of a pained scoff than anything else. Ambrose smiled nostalgically as he remembered the first few annuals of voyages, when Cain refused to let Ambrose sleep while he had to stay awake and how it had brought on many an irritable night between the two of them. He had continued to do so, but Ambrose had started to expect the frequency of Cain's wakings. He'd come to _hope_ for them. They meant more time talking, more time getting to know him. He liked them, even if it brought on many a moody night.

Ambrose knew it was strange to enjoy those nights, but he did. He liked all the nights, from the good ones, to the bad ones, to the irritable ones, to the 'Adora Moment' ones. He refused to let it end on a night that was coated with the heavy sheen of blood and the thick taste of disgust under his tongue, a curse lashed out against the Witch for this.

"Cain," Ambrose said, shaking the man in his arms. "Wyatt, come on, now, don't sleep on me."

"I _am_ on you."

"How very literal of you." For all his sarcasm, Ambrose was still having trouble delivering anything past a shaky breath and he closed his eyes as he pressed his forehead to Cain's and tried to ignore anything resembling fear in his system in favour of emotions like hope and optimism. "Cain, I mean it."

"Don't worry, Ambrose," Cain was speaking as patient as ever, as if nothing was the matter except maybe that their blankets were too damp. "Sleeping with you would be the best thing that's happened to me in annuals."

"You mean _on_ me," Ambrose patiently corrected the slip.

"No, I don't."

Ambrose froze, though this time it was hardly in anything like panic. He searched Cain's face quickly for anything resembling a joke and when he couldn't find anything in Cain's warm blue eyes – how could he ever have thought them icy? – he swallowed hard and leaned his forehead down against Cain's as a nervous laugh bubbled out from his throat and an episode came on hard and fast.

"Gee, Cain, could have told a guy earlier," he spat out anxiously before he got a hold of himself. "So, you've given in to my fine charms?"

"It was just a matter of time."

This, Ambrose could do. They could joke around and be light about the subject matter and Ambrose could forget that he was pressing down a cloth on Cain's neck to stop the flow of the bleeding. If they kept in good demeanours and avoided the dark turns of pessimism and cynicism, then they could make it through the next few hours easily.

Nearly seven annuals they had been travelling together through dark paths and darker days.

"I'm glad you feel that way, Cain," Ambrose finally admitted when a lull of silence overtook them and Cain seemed to be slipping off to sleep. It was a simple admission and barely skimmed the surface of everything he wanted to say, but it was a place to start. Everyone needed to start their journey somewhere.

tbc


End file.
